“It is highly honorable to him in every sense,” observed Lucy.  “But it was an awful risk of life for one man to pursue three.”

“A soldier, madam,” replied Roberts, bowing to her for the compliment, “in the moment of danger, or when the flag of his sovereign is likely to be sullied, should never remember that he has a life; or remember it only that it may be devoted to the glory of his country and the maintenance of her freedom.”

“That’s well said, Edward,” observed Mr. Mainwaring; “very well expressed indeed.  The clauses of that sentence all follow in a neat, consecutive order.  It is, indeed, all well put together as if it were an exercise.”

Edward could not help smiling at this unconscious trait of the old school-master peeping out.

“That general is a fine old fellow,” said Sam, “and knew how to reward true courage.  But you see, Mr. Mainwaring and ladies, it’s all natural, all the heart of man.”

“There’s Mr. Mitchell, our clergyman,” observed Mrs. Mainwaring, looking out of the window; “I wish he would come in.  Shall I call him, dear?”

“Never mind now, my love,” replied her husband.  “I like the man well enough; he is religious, they say, and charitable, but his early education unfortunately was neglected.  His sermons never hang well together; he frequently omits the exordium, and often winds them up without the peroration at all.  Then he mispronounces shockingly, and is full of false quantities.  It was only on last Sunday that he laid the accent on i in Dalilah.  Such a man’s sermons, I am sorry to say, can do any educated man little good.  Her’s a note, my love, from Mrs. Fletcher.  I met the servant coming over with it, and took it from him.  She wishes to hear from you in an hour or two:  it’s a party, I think.”

He threw the note over to his wife, who, after apologizing to the company, opened, and began to read it.

Honest old Mainwaring was an excellent man, and did a great deal of good in a quiet way, considering his sphere of life.  In attending to the sermon, however, when at church, he laid himself back in his pew, shut his eyes, put the end of his gold-headed cane to his lips, and set a criticising.  If all the rhetorical rules were duly observed, the language clear, and the parts of the sermon well arranged, and if, besides, there was neither false accent, nor false quantity, nor any bad grammar, he pronounced it admirable, and praised the preacher to the skies.  Anything short of this, however, he looked upon not only as a failure, but entertained strong doubts of the man’s orthodoxy, as well as of the purity of his doctrine.

“Yes, my dear,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, after having glanced over the note, “you are right; it is a party; and we are both asked; but I wonder, above all things, that Miss Fletcher should never cross her t’s; then the tails of her letters are so long that they go into the line below them, which looks so slovenly, and shows that her writing must have bean very much neglected.  I also know another fair neighbor of ours who actually puts ‘for’ before the infinitive mood, and flourishes her large letters like copperplate capitals that are only fit to appear in a merchant’s books.”