ail from his estate, and making this boy his heir--moved to the step,
I am sorry to say, by an implacable quarrel with his elder sister; for a
power of forgiveness was not among Sir Christopher's virtues. At length,
on the death of Anthony's mother, when he was no longer a curly-headed
boy, but a tall young man, with a captain's commission, Cheverel Manor
became _his_ home too, whenever he was absent from his regiment. Caterina
was then a little woman, between sixteen and seventeen, and I need not
spend many words in explaining what you perceive to be the most natural
thing in the world.

There was little company kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have
been much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay
her attentions--to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little
flutter of pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the
momentary timid glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing,
leaning at her side over the piano. Pleasant, too, to cut out that
chaplain with his large calves! What idle man can withstand
the temptation of a woman to fascinate, and another man to
eclipse?--especially when it is quite clear to himself that he means no
mischief, and shall leave everything to come right again by-and-by? At
the end of eighteen months, however, during which Captain Wybrow had
spent much of his time at the Manor, he found that matters had reached a
point which he had not at all contemplated. Gentle tones had led to
tender words, and tender words had called forth a response of looks which
made it impossible not to carry on the _crescendo_ of love-making. To
find one's self adored by a little, graceful, dark-eyed, sweet-singing
woman, whom no one need despise, is an agreeable sensation, comparable to
smoking the finest Latakia, and also imposes some return of tenderness as
a duty.

Perhaps you think that Captain Wybrow, who knew that it would be
ridiculous to dream of his marrying Caterina, must have been a reckless
libertine to win her affections in this manner! Not at all. He was a
young man of calm passions, who was rarely led into any conduct of which
he could not give a plausible account to himself; and the tiny fragile
Caterina was a woman who touched the imagination and the affections
rather than the senses. He really felt very kindly towards her, and would
very likely have loved her--if he had been able to love any one. But
nature had not endowed him with that ca