"
"Oh, if I could choose," said Mabel, "of course I'd marry a brigand,
and live in his mountain fastnesses, and be kind to his captives and
help them to escape and ,"
"You'll be a real treasure to your husband," said Gerald.
"Yes," said Kathleen, "or a sailor would be nice. You'd watch for
his ship coming home and set the lamp in the dormer window to
light him home through the storm; and when he was drowned at
sea you d be most frightfully sorry, and go every day to lay flowers
on his daisied grave."
"Yes," Mabel hastened to say, "or a soldier, and then you'd go to
the wars with short petticoats and a cocked hat and a barrel round
your neck like a St. Bernard dog. There's a picture of a soldier's
wife on a song auntie's got. It's called 'The Veevandyear'."
"When I marry " Kathleen quickly said.
"When I marry," said Gerald, "I'll marry a dumb girl, or else get the
ring to make her so that she can't speak unless she's spoken to.
Let's have a squint.
He applied his eye to the stone lattice.
"They're moving off," he said. "Those pink and purple hats are
nodding off in the distant prospect; and the funny little man with
the beard like a goat is going a different way from everyone else
the gardeners will have to head him off. I don't see Mademoiselle,
though. The rest of you had better bunk. It doesn't do to run any
risks with picnics.
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