"Why, what the deuce are you so desperately busy about?" asked the major, as Wilton hastily apologized for not having been ready to receive his friend.
"Oh, I have a hundred things in hand. I have had to 'interview' my lawyer, and then I have been with Box and Brushwood about exchanging into a regiment under orders for India—and—but the rest after dinner."
"Why, what are you up to now?" replied Moncrief, but not in the tone of a man that expects a direct reply.
Dinner passed very agreeably, for Wilton was in brilliant spirits. Not for many a year had Moncrief see him so bright.
"I believe this is the same room we dined in the day you started for Monkscleugh, and had the smash?" observed Moncrief, as the waiter, having placed dessert on the table, left the friends together.
"It is," said Wilton, looking round. "That is rather curious; and I remember your saying, 'I must dree my weird.' Well, Moncrief, I have dreed it, and I asked you here to-day to tell you the history, and receive your blessing or malediction, as the case may be."
Setting down his glass of port untasted, the major stared at his friend with an air of dismay and bewilderment.
"Courage, man!" continued Wilton, laughing at his consternation; "I am not in debt—only in love, and going to be married on Thursday next."
"To be married! You—who could not oblige your pleasant relative, Lord St. George, because of your invincible objection to lose your liberty?"
"Well, the liberty is gone long ago; so my only plan is to surrender at discretion, or, rather, without discretion. You remember a young lady we met at Brosedale—the lassie, in short, whom I picked out of the snow?"