ing that
you may feel so disposed, I have enclosed herewith a letter to the
Horse Guards, which I trust may facilitate your obtaining leave of
absence. I know of no other mode of making your peace with the
ladies, who are too highly incensed at your desertion to send one
civil postscript to this letter; and Kilkee and myself are
absolutely exhausted in our defence of you. Believe me, yours
truly,

"Callonby."

Had I received an official notification of my being appointed paymaster
to the forces, or chaplain to Chelsea hospital, I believe I should have
received the information with less surprise than I perused this letter
--that after the long interval which had elapsed, during which I had
considered myself totally forgotten by this family, I should now receive
a letter--and such a letter, too--quite in the vein of our former
intimacy and good feeling, inviting me to their house, and again
professing their willingness that I should be on the terms of our old
familiarity--was little short of wonderful to me. I read, too--with what
pleasure?--that slight mention of my cousin, whom I had so long regarded
as my successful rival, but who I began now to hope had not been
preferred to me. Perhaps it was not yet too late to think that all was
not hopeless. It appeared, too, that several letters had been written
which had never reached me; so, while I accused them of neglect and
forgetfulness, I was really more amenable to the charge myself; for, from
the moment I had heard of my cousin Guy's having been domesticated
amongst them, and the rumours of his marriage had reached me, I suffered
my absurd jealousy to blind my reason, and never wrote another line
after. I ought to have known how "bavarde" [boasting] Guy always was
--that he never met with the most commonplace attentions any where, that
he did not immediately write home about settlements and pin-money, and
portions for younger children, and all that sort of nonsense. Now I saw
it all plainly, and ten thousand times quicker than my hopes were
extinguished before were they again kindled, and I could not refrain
from regarding Lady Jane as a mirror of constancy, and myself the most
fortunate man in Europe. My old castle-building propensities came back
upon me in an instant, and I pictured myself, with Lady Jane as my
companion, wandering among the beautiful scenery of the Neckar, beneath
the loft