"
"Right, my Amelie!" said the Lady de Tilly. "We should not, and we
shall not be afraid, Pierre,--I must call you Pierre or nothing,--
we shall not be afraid, although you do lay in a new stock of
acquaintances in the capital, that old friends will be put aside as
unfashionable remnants."
"My whole stock of friendship consists of those remnants, my Lady,--
memories of dear friends I love and honor. They will never be
unfashionable with me: I should be bankrupt indeed, were I to part
with one of them."
"Then they are of a truer fabric than Penelope's web, for she, I
read, pulled in pieces at night what she had woven through the day,"
replied Lady de Tilly. "Give me the friendship that won't unravel."
"But not a thread of my recollections has ever unravelled, or ever
will," replied Pierre, looking at Amelie as she clasped the arm of
her aunt, feeling stronger, as is woman's way, by the contact with
another.
"Zounds! What is all this merchant's talk about webs and threads
and thrums?" exclaimed La Corne. "There is no memory so good as a
soldier's, Amelie, and for good reason: a soldier on our wild
frontiers is compelled to be faithful to old friends and old
flannels; he cannot help himself to new ones if he would.
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