It seemed now tolerably certain that the next half-year I should qualify for my commission, and might hope to be in the first four or five of my batch—a position that I never hoped to attain after I had been three months at the Academy, and which seemed impossible when I was straggling to cram at Mr Hostler’s academy.
The next half-year I should become a corporal, and should be one of the seniors, and should, consequently, have far more authority than I possessed as an old cadet only. It would be my last also at the Academy, for on joining the practical class we were removed to the Arsenal, and there occupied so exalted a rank that we did not mix much with cadets at the Upper Academy, as it was termed, in consequence of its standing on higher ground than the cadet barracks at the Arsenal.
I must confess that when I saw Bowden called from his seat at the public examination, and given the second prize for mathematics, which was delivered to him by a handsome old officer, I felt that if our merits had been fairly weighed I ought to have received the prize; but probably, had I received it, his feelings might have been similar. It is hard to be treated with injustice, but we are all inclined to fancy more or less that our merits are never fully acknowledged, and when certain men are selected for honours, while we are left out in the cold, that our claims were greater than theirs, and that we are victims to favouritism or want of perception in those who ought to have seen our value.
Although I did well in other branches of study, I stood no chance of gaining a prize in anything except mathematics. In drawing I was good, but there were several cadets much better, whom I was not likely to pass or excel.
Just before the vacation I received an invitation from Howard to pass a week with him in London, where he was staying on leave. Such a chance was not to be refused, so on leaving the Academy I went to town and found Howard in lodgings not far from his club. He was very glad to see me, and congratulated me on my success at the Academy, and gave it as his opinion that I had been “chowsed” out of the prize for mathematics.
During the week I passed with Howard in London, I, for the first time, had a taste of what London life was like. Out of the six evenings I was twice at the opera, once at the Haymarket theatre, once at a ball, to which Howard took me, once at a bachelors’ gathering at Evans’s, and the remaining night at Howard’s club. For a week this kind of life, from its novelty, was pleasant, but I made up my mind that it was a mistake, and that the quiet of the forest was healthier and better both for mind and body.
We visited the Row in the morning and the park in the afternoon, and saw certainly some of the most beautiful women in the world, for, no matter where we may travel or what nations we may visit, we come back and see in old England that her daughters are unrivalled.
As I sauntered on with Howard through the crowd I wondered how Helen Stanley would compare with some of the beauties I saw, and, as often happens to us when we think of a person, whom should I suddenly meet but the lady about whom I was thinking. The instant I saw her I knew there was something about her—I could not say what—which made her look different from those near her. She was natural and rather plainly dressed, and not what is, we believe, technically called “made up.” There was no paint or powder, false hair, or strengthened eyebrows, and she therefore seemed like a looker-on on the boards of a theatre where all the others were dressed up to act parts. She was only in town for a short time, and hoped to be down at the Heronry before my vacation was over.
“How is your cousin?” I inquired.
“I believe quite well,” replied Miss Stanley; “but I have seen little of him in the last three months, and shall see less now.”