by way of compensation.
'I did not mean you,' said Lionel, 'for it----for you would never have been sharp enough to think of the beast for yourself. I only told you because you could tell me what she would like best. Papa has just given me a sovereign.'
'He has given me another,' said Gerald, 'and we will put them together, and do it handsomely.'
'Well, what shall it be? Not that stupid book over again.'
'O no, no, she has had enough of that already, and there are plenty of other books that she wants.'
'No, don't let it be a book,' said Lionel; 'I can't think how anybody can like reading, when they can help it.'
'Well, I do like some reading, when it is a shipwreck, or a famous bloody battle,' said Gerald.
'Yes, but then it makes one's eyes ache so.'
'It does not mine.'
'Well, if I go on long it always makes mine ache,' said Lionel. 'And don't the letters look green and dance about, when you read by candle light?'
'No,' said Gerald. 'How funny that is, Lionel. But I'll tell you what, we will get Walter to take us out, and we shall be sure to see something famous, in some shop-window or other.'
Walter was at home for the Easter vacation, and under his protection the boys were allowed to go out. Very patient he was, and wisely did he give his counsel in the important choice which, if left to the boys themselves, might probably have been really something famous. Marian would have been grateful to him, had she known all that he averted from her, a stuffed fox, an immense pebble brooch, a pair of slippers covered with sportive demons. At every shop which furnished guns, knives, or fishing tackle, they stopped and lamented that she was not a boy, there was nothing in the world fit for girls; they tried a bazaar, and pronounced everything trumpery, and Walter was beginning to get into despair, when at last Lionel came to a stop before a print shop, calling out, 'Hollo, Gerald, here's Beauty and the Beast itself!'
It was the beautiful engraving from Raphael's picture of
Saint Margaret in meekness treading
Upon the dragon 'neath her spreading.
And Walter, rejoicing that their choice was likely to fall on anything which a young lady might be so glad to possess, conducted them into the shop, and gave all the desired assistance in effecting the purchase. It was a fine impression, and the price was so high as to leave the boys' finances at rather a low ebb; but Walter, in his secret soul, thought this by no means to be regretted, since it was much better for them that it should be generously spent at once in this manner, than that it should be frittered away in the unaccountable and vain manner in which he had usually seen schoolboys' money wasted.
So S. Margaret was bought and rolled up, and so afraid were the boys that she should not be rightly sent home, that they insisted on carrying her themselves, and almost quarrelled as to which should have the first turn.
Marian, on coming into her room, found both the boys on the top of the chest of drawers, trying to pin the print up against the wall, and though her arrival caused them some discomfiture, it was on the whole a fortunate circumstance, since it saved the corners from extensive damage.
'O Lionel! O Gerald! how beautiful! how very nice! What a lovely face! Is it really for me? How I do thank you, but I am afraid you have spent all your money.'
'It is a better Beauty and the Beast than the old one,' said Gerald, 'Isn't it, Marian?'
'A better beauty, but not a better beast,' said Lionel.
