nger,
ay, or even complain of it."

Mike's few words shot upon me a new and a sudden conviction,--what was to
prevent my joining once more? Obvious as such a thought now was, yet never
until this moment did it present itself so palpably. So habituated does
the mind become to a certain train of reasoning, framing its convictions
according to one preconceived plan, and making every fact and
every circumstance concur in strengthening what often may be but a
prejudice,--that the absence of the old Fourteenth in India, the sale of
my commission, the want of rank in the service, all seemed to present an
insurmountable barrier to my re-entering the army. A few chance words now
changed all this, and I saw that as a volunteer at least, the path of glory
was still open, and the thought was no sooner conceived, than the resolve
to execute it. While, therefore, I walked hurriedly up and down, devising,
planning, plotting, and contriving, each instant I would stop to ask myself
how it happened I had not determined upon this before.

As I summoned Mike before me, I could not repress a feeling of false shame,
as I remembered how suddenly so natural a resolve must seem to have
been adopted; and it was with somewhat of hesitation that I opened the
conversation.

"And so, sir, you are going after all,--long life to you? But I never
doubted it. Sure, you wouldn't be your father's son, and not join divarsion
when there was any going on."

The poor fellow's eyes brightened up, his look gladdened, and before he
reached the foot of the stairs, I heard his loud cheer of delight that once
more we were off to the wars.

The packet sailed for Liverpool the next morning. By it we took our
passage, and on the third morning I found myself in the waiting-room at
the Horse Guards, expecting the moment of his Royal Highness's arrival; my
determination being to serve as a volunteer in any regiment the duke might
suggest, until such time as a prospect presented itself of entering the
service as a subaltern.

The room was crowded by officers of every rank and arm in the service. The
old, gray-headed general of division; the tall, stout-looking captain of
infantry; the thin and boyish figure of the newly-gazetted cornet,--were
all there; every accent, every look that marked each trait of national
distinction in the empire, had its representative. The reserved and distant
Scotchman; the gay, laughing, exuberant Patlander; the dark-eyed, and
dark-brow