an offer of the hospitality of his
country-house, if they were minded to come to him. And besides this,
there came to him a private letter through the post--not very well
spelt, but in a handwriting which Harry smiled to see again, in which
his affeetionate cousin, Maria Esmond, told him she always loved to hear
his praises (which were in everybody's mouth now), and sympathised in
his good or evil fortune; and that, whatever occurred to him, she begged
to keep a little place in his heart. Parson Sampson, she wrote, had
preached a beautiful sermon about the horrors of war, and the noble
actions of men who volunteered to face battle and danger in the service
of their country. Indeed, the chaplain wrote himself, presently, a
letter full of enthusiasm, in which he saluted Mr. Harry as his friend,
his benefactor, his glorious hero. Even Sir Miles Warrington despatched
a basket of game from Norfolk: and one bird (shot sitting), with love
to my cousin, had a string and paper round the leg, and was sent as the
first victim of young Miles's fowling-piece.

And presently, with joy beaming in his countenance, Mr. Lambert came
to visit his young friends at their lodgings in Southampton Row, and
announced to them that Mr. Henry Warrington was forthwith to be gazetted
as Ensign in the Second Battalion of Kingsley's, the 20th Regiment,
which had been engaged in the campaign, and which now at this time was
formed into a separate regiment, the 67th. Its colonel was not with his
regiment during its expedition to Brittany. He was away at Cape Breton,
and was engaged in capturing those guns at Louisbourg, of which the
arrival in England had caused such exultation.

CHAPTER LXVI. In which we go a-courting

Some of my amiable readers no doubt are in the custom of visiting that
famous garden in the Regent's Park, in which so many of our finned,
feathered, four-footed fellow-creatures are accommodated with board and
lodging, in return for which they exhibit themselves for our instruction
and amusement: and there, as a man's business and private thoughts
follow him everywhere, and mix themselves with all life and nature round
about him, I found myself, whilst looking at some fish in the aquarium,
still actually thinking of our friends the Virginians.

One of the most beautiful motion-masters I ever beheld, sweeping through
his green bath in harmonious curves, now turning his black glistening
back to me, now exhibiting his fair white