cried the student , looking over his shoulder , with the pen between his fingers . `` What in the world do you want here ? I thought you were all in bed ! '' `` Hear him , Periwinkle , trying to talk like a grown man ! '' said Primrose . `` And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old , and may sit up almost as late as I please . But , Cousin Eustace , you must put off your airs , and come with us to the drawing-room . The children have talked so much about your stories , that my father wishes to hear one of them , in order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief . '' `` Poh , poh , Primrose ! '' exclaimed the student , rather vexed . `` I do n't believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people . Besides , your father is a classical scholar ; not that I am much afraid of his scholarship , neither , for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old case-knife , by this time . But then he will be sure to quarrel with the admirable nonsense that I put into these stories , out of my own head , and which makes the great charm of the matter for children , like yourself . No man of fifty , who has read the classical myths in his youth , can possibly understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver of them . '' `` All this may be very true , '' said Primrose , `` but come you must ! My father will not open his book , nor will mamma open the piano , till you have given us some of your nonsense , as you very correctly call it . So be a good boy , and come along . '' Whatever he might pretend , the student was rather glad than otherwise , on second thoughts , to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr. Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of ancient times . Until twenty years of age , a young man may , indeed , be rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose ; but , for all that , he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would place him at the tip-top of literature , if once they could be known . Accordingly , without much more resistance , Eustace suffered Primrose and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room .
It was a large handsome apartment , with a semicircular window at one end , in the recess of which stood a marble copy XXXXX Greenough 's Angel and Child .
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