tening at the same time, amid the
laughter of his companions, to quit the service in disgust at what he
called so ungentlemanly and gothic a habit. All he waited for, he
protested, was to have an opportunity of bearing away the spoils of
some Indian chief, that, on his return to England, he might afford his
lady mother an opportunity of judging with her own eyes of the sort of
enemy he had relinquished the comforts of home to contend against, and
exhibiting to her very dear friends the barbarous proofs of the prowess
of her son. Though these observations were usually made half in jest
half in earnest, there was no reason to doubt the young and lively
baronet was, in truth, heartily tired of a service which seemed to
offer nothing but privations and annoyances, unmixed with even the
chances of obtaining those trophies to which he alluded; and, but for
two motives, there is every probability he would have seriously availed
himself of the earliest opportunity of retiring. The first of these was
his growing friendship for the amiable and gentle Charles de Haldimar;
the second the secret, and scarcely to himself acknowledged, interest
which had been created in his heart for his sister Clara; whom he only
knew from the glowing descriptions of his friend, and the strong
resemblance she was said to bear to him by the other officers.

Clara de Haldimar was the constant theme of her younger brother's
praise. Her image was ever uppermost in his thoughts--her name ever
hovering on his lips; and when alone with his friend Valletort, it was
his delight to dwell on the worth and accomplishments of his amiable
and beloved sister. Then, indeed, would his usually calm blue eye
sparkle with the animation of his subject, while his colouring cheek
marked all the warmth and sincerity with which he bore attestation to
her gentleness and her goodness. The heart of Charles de Haldimar,
soldier as he was, was pure, generous, and unsophisticated as that of
the sister whom he so constantly eulogized; and, while listening to his
eloquent praises, Sir Everard learnt to feel an interest in a being
whom all had declared to be the counterpart of her brother, as well in
personal attraction as in singleness of nature. With all his affected
levity, and notwithstanding his early initiation into fashionable
life--that matter-of-fact life which strikes at the existence of our
earlier and dearer illusions--there was a dash of romance in the
character of the y