“You look fashed,” said the old lady. “I can see there’s some trouble going on behind your smile. What’s the matter? Nothing wrong, I hope, with the boys?”
“No, thank heaven!” said the Colonel; “if I had not meddled with other boys, who are less within my control. I have two vexatious letters this morning—one from that trustee I told you I had written to about my nephew: he will not do anything for him.”
“I thought as much,” said Mrs. Melrose, with a little nod of her head. “Take my advice another time, Edward: never you put any dependence on these business men; what do they care for a young man’s heart or spirit, when it’s interest and compound interest that’s in the question? I saw a great deal of them when I was young. My uncle that we were sent home to was a merchant, you remember: we used to spend our holidays there. I was very near marrying in that way myself, if I had had my own will at seventeen. They’re very good fathers and husbands, and the like of that; but put a question of what’s good for a man, and what’s good for his money, before them, and they aye put the last first. Yes, yes, I had very little hopes from that; but you, you see, you’re one of the sanguine kind—you are a man that never will learn.”
“So it appears,” said the Colonel; “and now, as though that were not enough, here’s that hot-headed young Musgrave I told you of—he about whom I wrote to old Armitage, of the Fifty-ninth, and to Sir George—a famous young fellow!—a boy you’d make a pet of, as sure as life; here’s a letter from him, informing me that he can’t impose upon my goodness, and all that sort of thing, and that he’s off to London. I have no doubt in my own mind,” said the Colonel, solemnly, “that at this moment the lad’s on horseback under the arch at the Horse-Guards, with a crowd staring at him. You may laugh, but it’s a very melancholy reflection; a man of birth and manners; the last of an old family; it is extremely vexatious to me.”
“And why should the folk stare at him?—is he such a paladin?” asked the old lady, with her merry laugh.
“He is a handsome fellow,” said the Colonel, “and carries himself like a gentleman—which is more than can be said of everybody,” he added, with a vexed recollection of Horace; “however, these are all my affairs. Is that a letter from Charlie? I certainly begin to forget the time for the mail.”
“You’ll find it out by-and-bye, when Ned is gone,” said Mrs. Melrose; “but look you here, Uncle Edward—here’s a sight for you—do ye think that’s like Charlie’s hand?”
The Colonel made haste to get his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on with a little nervousness.
“Eh?—what?—it’s a lady’s hand,” he cried, peering at the pink epistle, which the old lady held out to him triumphantly at arms length. “Who is it? Eh? What’s this? Fanny—no—Annie Melrose? Who on earth is Annie Melrose? Do you mean to tell me the boy’s married before he has been out a year?”
“Indeed, and I am very sorry to say it is quite true,” said the old lady, shaking her head with a demure and proper regret, which was quite belied by the bright expression in her eyes; “and really the two young fools, they seem so happy, that I have not the heart to blame him; for, after all, he’s my only one, Edward, and I know who she is—she’s Charlie’s Colonel’s daughter—you may recollect her; but I doubt if she was out before you came home. It’s a very short acquaintance, to be sure, but she was at school here, and used to come and spend the day with me. Her mother and I were great friends at Bintra when my poor General was in command there. The father was just a subaltern then, and no so very discreet either; and she was fighting among her young family, poor thing! I took a notion in my head that she was like one of my friends at home, and grew very fond of her. That time when Charlie was ill, when he was five years old, just before we sent him home, when I wanted poor Mary to go to the hills with me, and she could not—you remember?—I took Mrs. Oswald and her youngest, who was very delicate just then. To be sure, it was only a baby, poor bit thing, but the two bairns had but one ayah between them, and lived for a month or two like brother and sister. They were too young to remember anything about it; but I always think there’s a providence in these things. And so the short and the long of it is, Charlie’s married, and here’s a penitent letter from him, and a loving one from her; and if you believe me, when I got them first, what with Charlie’s pretence to be very sorry for doing the rash act, as the newspapers say, out of my knowledge, when it was just as clear as possible the boy was out of his wits with happiness; and what with her pretty bit kindly letter, poor thing! I laughed with pleasure till I cried, and cried till I laughed again. And you may look as grave as you like, Uncle Edward—it was what you did yourself, my man, and what your son will do after you; and you’ll no persuade me to make myself wretched because my only son is happy, and has made himself a home.”