"Then I trust you will extend the same friendship to his nephew," said the colonel.
"I don't know--I don't know," answered Mr. Croyland; "that must depend upon circumstances. I'm a very crabbed, tiresome old fellow, Sir Henry; and my friendships are not very sudden ones. But I have patted your head many a time when you were a child, and that's something. Then you are very like your father, and a little like your uncle, that's something more: so we may get on, I think. But what have you got to say more? and what in the name of fortune made you call yourself Captain Osborn, to an old friend of your family like myself?"
"I did not do so, if you recollect," replied the young officer. "It was my friend Digby who gave me that name; and you must pardon me, if, on many accounts, I yielded to the trick; for I was coming down here on a difficult service--one that I am not accustomed to, and do not like; and I was very desirous of seeing a little of the country, and of learning something of the habits of the persons with whom I had to deal, before I was called upon to act."
"And devilish well you did act when you set about it," cried Mr. Croyland. "I watched you this morning over the wall, and wondered a little that you did not come on to my house at once."
"It is upon that subject that I must now speak," said Sir Henry Leyton, taking a grave tone, "and I must touch upon many painful subjects in the past. Just when I was about to write to you, Mr. Croyland, to say that I would come, in accordance with your kind invitation, I learned that your niece, Miss Croyland, is staying at your house. Now, I know not whether you have been informed, that long ago----"
"Oh, yes, I know all about that," answered Mr. Croyland, quickly. "There was a great deal of love and courting, and all that sort of boy and girl's stuff."
"It must be man and woman's stuff now, Mr. Croyland," replied the young officer, "for I must tell you fairly and at once, I love her as deeply, as truly as ever. Years have made no difference; other scenes have made no change. The same as I went, in every thought and feeling, I have returned; and I can never think of her without emotion, which I can never speak to her without expressing."
"Indeed--indeed!" said Mr. Croyland, apparently in some surprise. "That does make some difference."
"That is what I feared," continued Sir Henry Leyton. "Your brother disapproved of our engagement. In consequence of it, he behaved to my father in a way--on which I will not dwell. You would not have behaved in such a way, I know; and although I should think any means justifiable, to see your niece when in her father's mansion, to tell her how deeply I love her still, and to ask her to sacrifice fortune and everything to share a soldier's fate, yet I did not think it would be right or honourable, to come into the house of a friend under a feigned name, and seek his niece--for seek her I should wherever I found her--when he might share the same views as his brother, or at all events think himself bound to support them. In short, Mr. Croyland, I knew that when you were aware of my real name and of my real feelings, it would make a difference, and a great one."
"Not the difference you think, Harry," replied the old gentleman, holding out his hand to him; "but quite the reverse.--I'll tell you what, young man, I think you a devilish fine, high-spirited, honourable fellow, and the only one I ever saw whom I should like to marry my Edith. So don't say a word more about it. Come and dine with me to-day, as soon as you've got all this job over. You shall see her; you shall talk to her; you shall make all your arrangements together; and if there's a post-chaise in the country, I'll put you in and shut the door with my own hands. My brother is an old fool, and worse than an old fool, too--something very like an old rogue--at least, so he behaved to your father, and not much better to his own child; but I don't care a straw about him, and never did; and I never intend to humour one of his whims."