“'As I don't suppose you'll see it in the “Gazette,” I may as well say that I 'm to be made a corporal on my return to duty. It's a long way yet to major-general, but at least I 'm on the road, Bella.'”
“A corporal! a corporal!” exclaimed Kellett; “may I never, if I know whether it's not a dream. Paul Kellett's eldest son—Kellett of Kellett's Court—a corporal!”
“My father's prejudices all attach to the habits of his own day,” said Bella, in a low voice, to the soldier,—“to a time totally unlike the present in everything.”
“Not in everything, Miss Kellett,” said the youth, with a quiet smile. “Jack has just told you that all the old ardor, all the old spirit, is amongst the troops. They are the sons and grandsons of the gallant fellows that beat the French out of Spain.”
“And are you going back?” asked Kellett, half moodily, and scarcely knowing what he said.
“They won't have me,” said the soldier, blushing as he looked at his empty sleeve; “they want fellows who can handle a Minié rifle.”
“Oh, to be sure—I ought to have known—I was forgetting,” stammered he out, confusedly; “but you have your pension, anyhow.”
“I've a kind old mother, which is better,” said the youth, blushing deeper again. “She only gave me a short leave to run over and see Jack Kellett's family; for she knows Jack, by name at least, as if he were her own.”
To Bella's questions he replied that his mother had a small cottage near Bettws, at the foot of Snowdon; it was one of the most picturesque spots of all Wales, and in one of those sunny nooks where the climate almost counterfeits the South of Europe.
“And now you'll go back, and live tranquilly there,” said the girl, half dreamily, for her thoughts were wandering away Heaven knows where.