go on! As if it wasn't enough to have to run the risk of being killed
or wounded once or twice yourself, without bothering your head about
battles you've nothing to do with."

And when he did the battle in which my father fell, and planted the
battery against which he led his men for the last time, and where he
was struck under the arm, with which he was waving his sword over his
head, Rupert turned whiter than ever, and said, "Good Heavens,
Henrietta! Father _limped_ up to that battery! He led his men for two
hours, after he was wounded in the leg, before he fell--and here I
sit and grumble at a knock from a cricket-ball!"

Just then Mr. Bustard came in, and when he shook Rupert's hand he kept
his fingers on it, and shook his own head; and he said there was "an
abnormal condition of the pulse," in such awful tones, that I was
afraid it was something that Rupert would die of. But Henrietta
understood better, and she would not let Rupert do that battle any
more.

Rupert's friends were very kind to him when he was ill, but the
kindest of all was Thomas Johnson.

Johnson's grandfather was a canal-carrier, and made a good deal of
money, and Johnson's father got the money and went on with the
business. We had a great discussion once in the nursery as to whether
Johnson's father was a gentleman, and Rupert ran down-stairs, and into
the drawing-room, shouting, "Now, Mother! _is_ a carrier a gentleman?"

And Mother, who was lying on the sofa, said, "Of course not. What
silly things you children do ask! Why can't you amuse yourselves in