n her heart to his younger rival, he kept silence, and he
never asked for what he knew he might have had--the old man's authority
in his favor. So generous was the affection which he could never
conquer, that he constantly tried to reconcile the father to his
children whilst he lived, and, when he died, he bequeathed his house and
small estate to the woman he had loved.

"It will be a legacy of peace," he thought, on his death bed. "The old
man cannot hold out when she and her children are constantly in sight.
And it may please GOD that I shall know of the reunion I have not been
permitted to see with my eyes."

And thus it came about that the Captain's regiment went to India without
him, and that the Captain's wife and her father lived on opposite sides
of the same road.

III.

The eldest of the Captain's children was a boy. He was named Robert,
after his grandfather, and seemed to have inherited a good deal of the
old gentleman's character, mixed with gentler traits. He was a fair,
fine boy, tall and stout for his age, with the Captain's regular
features, and (he flattered himself) the Captain's firm step and martial
bearing. He was apt--like his grandfather--to hold his own will to be
other people's law, and (happily for the peace of the nursery) this
opinion was devoutly shared by his brother Nicholas. Though the Captain
had left the army, Robin continued to command an irregular force of
volunteers in the nursery, and never was colonel more despotic. His
brothers and sisters were by turn infantry, cavalry, engineers, and
artillery, according to his whim.

The Captain alone was a match for his strong-willed son.

"If you please, sir," said Sarah, one morning, flouncing in upon the
Captain, just as he was about to start for the neighboring town,--"If
you please, sir, I wish you'd speak to Master Robert. He's past my
powers."

"I've no doubt of it," thought the Captain, but he only said, "Well,
what's the matter?"

"Night after night do I put him to bed," said Sarah, "and night after
night does he get up as soon as I'm out of the room, and says he's
orderly officer for the evening, and goes about in his night-shirt and
his feet as bare as boards."

The Captain fingered his heavy moustache to hide a smile, but he
listened patiently to Sarah's complaints.

"It ain't so much _him_ I should mind, sir," she continued, "but he goes
round the beds and wakes up the other young gentlemen and Miss Dora, one
after