"Hold your tongue, lad! men don't buy what is worth reading by the cart-load!" growled the Squire. "'Tis only trash that is disposed of in that way." "Very likely, Sir," responded Harry as before. "Yet give me leave to ask how many prayer-books have been printed in England since the reign of Queen Elizabeth?" The Squire only grunted, being deep in the _Gazette_, and Harry turned his attention elsewhere. "I should like to have heard Dr. Sacheverell," said Celia, timidly. "Nonsense, Celia!" answered Isabella from her embroidery-frame. "You don't want to hear a man preach treason!" "I was not thinking of the treason," sighed Celia. "Celia, why do you want to hear Dr. Sacheverell?" asked Charley, as he sat on the step of the dais which elevated the window above the rest of the chamber. Celia hesitated, colored, and went on with her work without answering. She and Charley were alone in the room. "If you wanted to hear what he had to say about what they call treason, you don't need to be afraid of telling _me_," said Charley. "I don't know whether I shall not take up with treason myself." "O Charley!" exclaimed Celia. "Don't talk in that way. Think how angry Father would be if he heard you!" "O Celestina!" exclaimed Charley in his turn. This was his pet name for his favorite sister. Had she possessed a long name, he would probably have abbreviated it; as she had a short one, he extended it. "O Celestina! I am so tired of being good! I am tired of Sundays, and grammar, and the catechism, and sermons, and keeping things tidy, and going to church, and being scolded, and--I'm tired of everything!" said Charley, suddenly lumping together the remainder of his heterogeneous catalogue. "Charley!" said Celia, slowly and wonderingly. "I am! And I am half determined to go off, and have no more of it! Father may say what he likes about treason, and hang the Pretender as often as he pleases; but I say 'tis a grand thing to think of the King's son, whom we have kicked out, living on charity in a foreign land, and trying with such wonderful patience to recover the throne of his fathers! I should like to be with him, and bivouac--isn't that what Harry calls it?--bivouac in forests, and march on day after day, always seeing something new, and then at last have a battle! Wouldn't it be glorious?" "For you to fight with Harry, and one of you kill the other? No, I don't think it would." "I didn't say anything about fighting with Harry," resumed Charley, a little sulkily. "No, I should not like that. But as to anything else, I just tell you, Celia, that if some day I am not to be found, you will know I am gone to St. Germains to fight for the King--the King!" And Charley drew himself up at least two inches as he said the last words. "Hush, Charley, do!" "I won't hush! And I really mean it!" "Charley, I shall have to tell Father, if you talk any more nonsense like that!" said Celia, really alarmed.