"What is the matter, Colonel ?" "Upon my life, it would puzzle me to say," answered the Colonel, biting his lips.
"A mere question, Hal, about pink ribbons, which I think vastly becoming to our mother; as, no doubt, the Colonel does." "Sir, will you please to speak for yourself ?" cried the Colonel, bustling up, and then sinking his voice again.
"He speaks too much for himself," wept the widow.
"I protest I don't any more know the source of these tears, than the source of the Nile," said George, "and if the picture of my father were to begin to cry, I should almost as much wonder at the paternal tears.
What have I uttered?
An allusion to ribbons! Is there some poisoned pin in them, which has been struck into my mother's heart by a guilty fiend of a London mantua-maker?
I professed to wish to be led in these lovely reins all my life long," and he turned a pirouette on his scarlet heels.
"George Warrington! what devil's dance are you dancing now ?" asked Harry, who loved his mother, who loved Mr.Washington, but who, of all creatures, loved and admired his brother George.
"My dear child, you do not understand dancing--you care not for the politer arts--you can get no more music out of a spinet than by pulling a dead hog by the ear.

By nature you were made for a man--a man of war--I do not mean a seventy-four, Colonel George, like that hulk which brought the hulking Mr.Braddock into our river.

His Excellency, too, is a man of warlike turn, a follower of the sports of the field.

I am a milksop, as I have had the honour to say." "You never showed it yet.

You beat that great Maryland man was twice your size," breaks out Harry.
"Under compulsion, Harry.