No reply could I extract; only once,
as she passed swiftly to the china cupboard, with the whole Crown Derby
tea and coffee service on one big tray (the Colonel had praised her
coffee), I heard her mutter--"Soldiers is very upsetting." Certainly,
considering what she did in the way of scolding, scouring, blackleading,
polishing and sand-papering that week, it was not Martha's fault if we
did not "get straight again," furniture and feelings. I've heard her say
that Calais sand would "fetch anything off," and I think it had fetched
the Colonel off her heart by the time that the cleaning was done.
It had no such effect on mine. Lewis Lorraine himself did not worship
his uncle more devoutly than I. Colonel Jervois had given me a new
ideal. It was possible, then, to be enthusiastic without being unmanly;
to live years out of England, and come back more patriotic than many
people who stayed comfortably at home; to go forth into the world and be
the simpler as well as the wiser, the softer as well as the stronger for
the experience? So it seemed. And yet Lewis had told me, with such tears
as Snuffy never made him shed, how tender his uncle was to his
unworthiness, what allowances he made for the worst that Lewis could say
of himself, and what hope he gave him of a good and happy future.
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