“The Forty-ninth,” said he, repeating the words once or twice. “Let me see,—don't I know some Forty-ninth men? To be sure I do. There's Rep ton and Hare. Your brother will be delighted with Hare.”
“My brother is in the ranks, Major Stapylton,” said she, flushing a deep scarlet; and Barrington quickly interposed,—
“It was the wild frolic of a young man to escape a profession he had no mind for.”
“But in foreign armies every one does it,” broke in Stapylton, hurriedly. “No matter what a man's rank may be, he must carry the musket; and I own I like the practice,—if for nothing else for that fine spirit of camaraderie which it engenders.”
Fifine's eyes sparkled with pleasure at what she deemed the well-bred readiness of this speech, while Polly became deadly pale, and seemed with difficulty to repress the repartee that rose to her mind. Not so Miss Dinah, who promptly said, “No foreign customs can palliate a breach of our habits. We are English, and we don't desire to be Frenchmen or Germans.”
“Might we not occasionally borrow from our neighbors with advantage?” asked Stapylton, blandly.
“I agree with Miss Barrington,” said Withering,—“I agree with Miss Barrington, whose very prejudices are always right. An army formed by a conscription which exempts no man is on a totally different footing from one derived from voluntary enlistment.”
“A practice that some say should be reserved for marriage,” said Barrington, whose happy tact it was to relieve a discussion by a ready joke.
They arose from table soon after,—Polly to accompany Miss Barrington over the garden and the shrubberies, and show all that had been done in their absence, and all that she yet intended to do, if approved of; Withering adjourned to Barrington's study to pore over parchments; and Stapylton, after vainly seeking to find Josephine in the drawing-room, the flower-garden, or the lawn, betook himself with a book, the first he could find on the table, to the river's side, and lay down, less to read than to meditate and reflect.
A breezy morning of a fine day in early autumn, with slow sailing clouds above and a flickering sunlight on the grass below, besides a rippling river, whose banks are glowing with blue and purple heath-bells,—all these and a Waverley novel were not enough to distract Stapylton from the cares that pressed upon his mind; for so it is, look where we may on those whom Fortune would seem to have made her especial favorites, and we shall find some unsatisfied ambition, some craving wish doomed to disappointment, some hope deferred till the heart that held it has ceased to care for its accomplishment. To the world's eyes, here was a man eminently fortunate: already high up in the service, with health, vigor, and good looks, a reputation established for personal gallantry in the field, and an amount of capacity that had already won for him more than one distinction, and yet all these, great and solid advantages as they are, were not sufficient to give the ease of mind we call happiness.