“There is a pretty tale, Hugh, of the French gentlemen, who, being poor, have to make money in commerce. They leave their swords with a magistrate, and when they are become rich enough take them back again. There is some pleasing ceremony, but I forget. The Wynnes have been long enough in drab and trade. It is time we took back our swords, and quitted bow-thouing and bow-theeing.” I said I did not understand. “Oh, you will,” said Aunt Gainor, giving me a great apple-dumpling. “Take some molasses. Oh, as much as you please. I shall look away, as I do when the gentlemen take their rum.” You may be sure I obeyed her. As to much that she said, I was shocked; but I never could resist a laugh, and so we made merry like children, as was usual, for, as she used to say, “To learn when to laugh and when not to laugh is an education.” When my meal was over, and my stomach and my pockets all full, Aunt Gainor bade me sit on her knees, and began to tell me about what fine gentlemen were the Wynnes, and how foolish my grandfather had been to turn Quaker and give up fox-hunting and the old place. I was told, too, how much she had lost to Mr. Penn last night, and more that was neither well for me to hear nor wise for her to tell; but as to this she cared little, and she sent me away then, as far too many times afterward, full of my own importance, and of desire to escape some day from the threatened life of the ledger and the day-book. At last she said, “You are getting too heavy, Hugh. Handsome Mrs. Ferguson says you are too big to be kissed, and not old enough to kiss,” and so she bade me go forth to the afternoon session of the academy. After two weeks at the academy I got my first lesson in the futility of non-resistance, so that all the lessons of my life in favour of this doctrine were, of a sudden, rendered vain. We were going home in the afternoon, gay and happy, Jack Warder to take supper with me, and to use a boat my aunt had given me. Near to High street was a vacant lot full of bushes and briers. Here the elder lads paused, and one said, “Wynne, you are to fight.” I replied, “Why should I fight? I win not.” “But it is to get your standing in the school, and Tom Alloway is to fight you.” “This was a famous occasion in our lives,” writes my friend Jack; “for, consider: I, who was a girl for timidity, was sure to have my turn next, and here were we two little fellows, who had heard every First-day, and ever and ever at home, that all things were to be suffered of all men (and of boys too, I presume). I was troubled for Hugh, but I noticed that while he said he would not fight he was buttoning up his jacket and turning back the cuff of one sleeve. Also he smiled as he said, ‘No, I cannot;’ and many times since I have seen him merry, in danger.