ain.

It is always more "carino" to talk of a husband at the last line of
a letter, and so I say, give dear Tino all my loves, quite apart and
distinct from my other legacies of the like nature. Tell him, I am more
tolerant than I used to be,--he will know my meaning,--that I make paper
cigarettes just as well, and occasionally, when in high good-humor, even
condescend to smoke one too. Say also, that I have a little chestnut
cob, quiet enough for his riding, which shall be always at his orders;
that he may dine with me every Sunday, and have one dish--I know
well what it will be, I smell the garlic of it even now--of his own
dictating; and if these be not enough, add that he may make love to me
during the whole of Lent; and with this, believe me

Your own doting sister,

Augusta Bramleigh.

After much thought and many misgivings I deemed it advisable to offer to
take one of the girls with me, leaving it open, to mark my indifference,
as to which it should be. They both however refused, and, to my intense
relief, declared that they did not care to come abroad; Augustus also
protesting that it was a plan he could not approve of. The diplomatist
alone opined that the project had anything to recommend it; but as his
authority, like my own, in the family, carries little weight, we were
happily outvoted. I have, therefore, the supreme satisfaction--and is it
not such?--of knowing that I have done the right thing, and it has cost
me nothing; like those excellent people who throw very devout looks
towards heaven, without the remotest desire to be there.

CHAPTER III. "THE EVENING AFTER A HARD RUN."

It was between eight and nine o'clock of a wintry evening near
Christmas; a cold drizzle of rain was falling, which on the mountains
might have been snow, as Mr. Drayton, the butler at the great house, as
Castello was called in the village, stood austerely with his back to the
fire in the dining-room, and, as he surveyed the table, wondered within
himself what could possibly have detained the young gentlemen so late.
The hounds had met that day about eight miles off, and Colonel Bramleigh
had actually put off dinner half an hour for them, but to no avail; and
now Mr. Drayton, whose whole personal arrangements for the evening
had been so thoughtlessly interfered with, stood there musing over
the wayward nature of youth, and inwardly longing for the time when,
retiring from active service, he should enjoy the ease and ind