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"A woman in the prime of life and activity is condemned as an incipient leper, suddenly removed from her home, and her husband returns to find his two helpless babes moaning for their lost mother. "Imagine it!
I shall never, to my dying day, forget that moment's agony when my mind first grasped the truth of the deadly peril those thoughtless babes had incurred. Without instant help, those little children must be drowned, for the water flowed into the cave. Even now it might be too late. All these thoughts whirled through my brain in an instant.
"Sir," he said in a deep voice, "I have bethought myself of still further treasure which if you will allow me to go after in my trusty boat, I will get and bring to you if you will allow me to say farewell at that time to my wife and babes." "Ha!" returned the pirate. "How do I know you'll come back?" The duke folded his arms. "You have my word of honor which never has, and never will, be broken."
So Olly and Charlie went off to their corner, and for a little while all the other children played there too. Milly had invented a game called the "Babes in the Wood," in which two children were the babes and pretended to die on the grass, and all the rest were the robins, and covered them up with hay instead of leaves.
Oliver, while managing to get through a copious and excellent lunch in spite of his sorrows, regards them with the morose pity of a dyspeptic octogenarian for healthy children. It is all very well and beautiful for them now, he supposes grimly, but sooner or later even such babes as they will have to Face Life Come Up Against Facts
Two days later our good dogs brought in the rest of the family the babes to the warm welcome and plenty at the Children's Home, while one of the pluckiest little women I have ever known, even in a country of brave and self-reliant women, was carried into the hospital partially paralyzed with beri-beri.
What harm would it be? We are not babes, we two. We understand life. And who would have any right to blame or to meddle? Julie, I know a little inn in the valley of the Bièvre, quite near Paris, but all wood and field. No English tourists ever go there. Sometimes an artist or two but this is not the time of year.
We do not often fail, because we know very well we are taking on a part, and must play it to the very best of our ability all the time and gradually we play it better than if it were natural." "What a little cynic! 'Out of the mouths of babes'!" and he laughed. "I am not at all a cynic! It is the truth I am telling you.
My lads, these are stern times; and this despatch tells me of what will bring the honest British blood into every face, and make every strong man take a firm gripe of his piece as he longs for the order to charge the mutinous traitors to their Queen, who, taking her pay, sworn to serve her, have turned, and in cold blood butchered their officers, slain women, and hacked to pieces innocent babes.
Men who had dreamed of this night for years, and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream a fact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening. While women left alone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or clasped to their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, or why their mothers looked strangely on them.
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