Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/432

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394
SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED

ever!" he said in a weak voice. "All of me, that is not Lumbago, is Loyalty!"

"A sweet sentiment!" the Empress exclaimed with tears in her eyes. "You seldom hear anything so beautiful as that——even in a Valentine!"

"We must take you to stay at the seaside," Sylvie said, tenderly. "It'll do you ever so much good! And the Sea's so grand!"

"But a Mountain's grander!" said Bruno.

"What is there grand about the Sea?" said the Professor. "Why, you could put it all into a teacup!"

"Some of it," Sylvie corrected him.

"Well, you'd only want a certain number of tea-cups to hold it all. And then where's the grandeur? Then as to a Mountain——why, you could carry it all away in a wheel-barrow, in a certain number of years!"

"It wouldn't look grand——the bits of it in the wheel-barrow," Sylvie candidly admitted.

"But when oo put it together again——" Bruno began.

"When you're older," said the Professor, "you'll know that you ca'n't put Mountains