for a lieutenant's commission (it was not
absolutely necessary in those days to begin
with the lower grade) in a regiment at that
time engaged in bringing the revolted
Americans to submission. And, accordingly, in
all his day-dreams about Nancy Cleghorn
there had been a perpetual glitter of
epaulettes on his shoulders and a clank of sword
and spur, which, however, only intruded
themselves in a prominent manner when his
thoughts dwelt on that young lady's
imperturbable papa, whose insight into the human
heart we have observed was greatly strengthened
by his knowledge of geography.

"In a week?" he said. "Well, we have
seven days' happiness before us, dear mother,
and I will not allow a cloud to pass over a
single hour."

"And therefore you won't tell me how you
prospered to-day at Falder Mains."

"On the contrary, I will not conceal a
syllable of all that passed. Old George is as
great a millstone as ever, but Nancy is true
as steel. She says if we're not rich enough
to live without employment, she can make
as much money as we require by her paintings.
And how beautiful they are, mother! What
likenesses!—what finish! You should see
what she has made of me on Black Angus.
By-the-bye, I wonder if they'll let me take
him as my charger! I feel sure if Tom
Spiinders at the turnpike saw the picture
at his gate, he would charge toll as if it
were alive."

"But painting is a very precarious profession;
and, besides, it is not quite the occupation
for——"

"Ah! there's some of your nonsensical
family pride, because you claim from Robert
Bruce. I don't see why painting isn't as
gentle a craft as wearing a uniform or
pleading at the bar. But we shan't require
it. She has only two sisters—I am an
only child. Glen Bara is not very valuable;
but we could live, mother—we could
be happy: we could read, and draw,
and walk, and ride, and farm, and feed
cattle till they couldn't move—only George
Cleghorn talks such nonsense about Dumbarton!
How the deuce can I be such a great
ugly, frowning mass of Whin! And Nancy
—she's to be Ailsa Craig—and then, when we
have been petrified for seven years, we are to
marry. Seven years!—only think of what
an immense time that is!"

And then the young soldier poured out all
his indignation on the head of poor old
George Cleghorn of Falder Mains. And the
mother thought it very unkind of Mr. Cleghorn
to be so very careful and distrusting.
And many attempts all the week were made
to shorten the period of probation. Would
three years do?—would five? But no!
George Cleghorn was as obstinate as a mule,
and Charles Harburn at the appointed
time took his way for London to embark
for foreign service, with a charming miniature
of Nancy suspended by a ribbon and
resting night and day upon his heart, and
leaving with her his whole-length portrait,
mounted on Black Angus, and bearing at
one corner the signatures in white paint
of the two lovers, under the hated names of
Dumbarton and Ailsa Craig, with the date,
in fainter letters, seventeen hundred and
eighty.

Now, did Charles Harburn ever see Falder
Mains again? Did he marry Nancy Cleghorn?
Did the flinty-hearted father of that
accomplished maiden relent, and send over
the sea to tell Charles that as none but the
brave deserve the fair, he had determined to
bestow his daughter's hand where her heart
had so long been placed, in reward of the
gallantry he had shown in many a dashing
charge? And that his mother, the dear and
honoured Mrs. Harburn, was in earnest
expectation of his return to Glen Bara, which
she had had newly painted and decorated in
honour of the approaching happy event?
It is a pity, my good and curious reader,
that you can't examine my countenance
before you put these questions. Do you see
any symptom of fatuity, or even insanity, in
my light grey eyes?—any wandering of
intellect in the corners of this rather well-cut
mouth? In short, do you suppose I am
such a very egregious Tom Noddy as to tell
you whether any of these incidents occurred
at this particular part of the story ? Don't
you see that I have to go to America with
my hero, and describe his achievements at
Camden and Eutah Springs and York
Town—at the latter of which he received
that sword-cut on his temple which made
him so interesting, and left a mark that most
people considered a great increase to the
manliness of his beauty? Then I have to
describe his disagreement with his general,
and his duel with the insulting aide-de-camp;
his rescue of his colonel's daughter from the
hands of the wild Indians, who were about
to tomahawk her first and eat her afterwards.
Then his long detention in America by
circumstances over which he had no control
—his appointment to a difficult and
dangerous command in Canada—his adventure
in the boat at the edge of Niagara
Falls—all these things I shall relate in the
order here set down, if I see any necessity
for doing so; and I do most positively decline
to depart from what I consider the proper
course of my narrative merely to gratify a
petulant curiosity as to whether certain
things happened at a certain time, with
which it strikes me the reader has nothing
whatever to do, except to read, with
profound admiration, when the secret is at
last confidentially communicated. How do
I know that if he were discontented with
the answer I gave him, he wouldn't at
once shut up the page, and perhaps fly to
an account of the Queen's last Drawing Room
in the Morning Post? It is therefore,