to its first meanderings.

Sir Dudley Broughton was the only son of a wealthy baronet, who,
not from affection or overkindness, but out of downright indolent
indifference, permitted him, first as an Eton boy, and afterwards as
a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, to indulge in every dissipation
that suited his fancy. An unlimited indulgence, a free command of
whatever money he asked for, added to a temper constitutionally
headstrong and impetuous, soon developed what might have been expected
from the combination. He led a life of wild insubordination
at school, and was expelled from Oxford. With faculties above rather
than beneath mediocrity, and a certain aptitude for acquiring the
knowledge most in request in society, he had the reputation of being one
who, if he had not unhappily so addicted himself to dissipation, would
have made a favorable figure in the world. After trying in vain to
interest himself in the pursuits of a country life, of which the
sporting was the only thing he found attractive, he joined a well-known
light cavalry regiment, celebrated for numbering among its officers more
fast men than any other corps in the service. His father, dying about
the same time, left him in possession of a large fortune, which, with
all his extravagance, was but slightly encumbered. This fact, coupled
with his well-known reputation, made him popular with his brother
officers, most of whom, having run through nearly all they possessed,
saw with pleasure a new Croesus arrive in the regiment. Such a man as
Broughton was just wanted. One had a charger to get off; another wanted
a purchaser for his four-in-hand drag. The senior captain was skilful at
billiards; and every one played "lansquenet" and hazard.

Besides various schemes against his purse, the colonel had a still
more serious one against his person. He had a daughter, a handsome,
fashionable-looking girl, with all the manners of society, and a great
deal of that tact only to be acquired in the very best foreign
society. That she was no longer in the fresh bloom of youth, nor with a
reputation quite spotless, were matters well known in the regiment; but
as she was still eminently handsome, and "the Count Radchoffsky" had
been recalled by the emperor from the embassy of which he was secretary,
Lydia Delmar was likely, in the opinions of keen-judging parties,
to make a good hit with "some young fellow who did n't know town."
Broughton was exactly the man Colonel De