'Now, you know 'tis holiday time, and volunteer work; besides, she
was waiting for you, and I could not help doing this.' She held out
a hand, which was scarcely needed, and Mary sprang lightly to share
her perch upon the wall. 'Look here!'

'Am I to guess the subject as in the game of historic outlines,' said
Miss Nugent, as the book was laid on her lap. 'It looks like a
modern--no, a mediaeval--edition of Marcus Curtius about to leap into
the capital opening for a young man, only with his dogs instead of
his horse. That hound seems very rationally to object.'

'Now don't! Guess in earnest.'

'A compliment to your name. The Boy of Egremont, poor fellow, just
about to bound across the strid.'

'Exactly! I always feel sure that my father must have done something
like this.'

'Was it so heroic?' said Miss Mary. 'You know it was for the
hundredth time, and he had no reason to expect any special danger.'

'Oh, but his mother was waiting, and he had to go. Now, I'll tell
you how it must have been with my father. You know he sailed away in
a yacht before I was born, and poor mother never saw him again; but I
know what happened. There was a ship on fire like the Birkenhead,
and the little yacht went near to pick up the people, and my father
called out, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert--