"Indeed I always thought there were thirty-_nine_!" said the young scamp, in the most natural tone of surprise imaginable, and in response to the Colonel's last "thirty-two."
"Thirty-nine _what_, sir?" asked the Colonel, with the same sign of intense disgust upon his face that we have sometimes seen on Harry Placide's, when playing _Sir Harcourt Courtley_ and uttering the words: "Good gracious! who was addressing _you_?"
"Oh, I really beg pardon," replied the young man, in a tone which meant that he did nothing of the kind. "I thought I heard Mrs. West and yourself speaking of the religious aspects of the country, and that you were enumerating the articles of faith."
"Oh no, you were quite mistaken, Mr. Wallace!" said Aunt Martha, very calmly, while Emily directed an appealing look at the scapegrace, which might as well have been a putty pellet fired at the brown-stone Washington in the Park, for any effect it produced.
"No sir, we were talking of nothing of the kind!" said the Colonel, with that kind of severe dignity intended to convey: "This closes the conversation."
"Then of course it is my duty to beg pardon once more," said the incorrigible. "But you _might_ have been talking on that subject, you know, without any impropriety. The religious aspects of the country are deplorable!" throwing up his hands and eyes in no bad imitation of _Aminadab Sleek_. "Do you not think so, Colonel?"
"Sir!" said the Colonel, still more severely, "I had not been thinking of the subject at all!"
"Oh yes," the scapegrace went on--"deplorable! War desolating the country--all the restraints of society removed or weakened--no Sabbath at all--gambling and libertinism in the army and infidelity among the officers--Colonel, I really hope you will excuse me! of course I do not mean to make any allusion to the present company--but I repeat that the present religious aspects of the country are deplorable."
"And _I_ repeat, sir," spoke the Colonel, with even more severity than before, while Aunt Martha's face began to assume an expression that might easily have deepened into a smile, and Emily had serious trouble to keep from a broad grin--"_I_ repeat, sir, that we were not speaking of the religious aspects of the country at all!"