greeable,
as I would wish, with my heart to subscribe.

"Why, man, and this will make you curious, if envy there be in you,
young French ladies take pains and pleasure to teach British officers
French, with what view I know not, if it be not to hear themselves
praised, flattered and courted, without loss of time. To praise comes
natural to me, to flatter is not amiss, and, as to courting, I judge
you have always appreciated that in me. You may have doubted me in
some respects; you had no doubts I fancy, in that particular.

"This quality of mine--I claim it a quality--has made me take, with
growing kindness, to where I am, and the idea of coming home again,
when it arises in my mind, I rather put aside. My natural dream is
that I shall return, but mostly I am content to play with the fancy, to
catch it up, put it aside, and again catch it up, and once more let it
rest.

"There I am backed by the circumstance that I have no tidings whatever
touching my plans, as declared to you, in regard to Corgarff, and I
suppose that your thankless rulers have forgotten me. They were
willing to use me as a pacifier, and when that did not promise an
immediate result they found me of use in the war of New France. This
service being completed, faithfully, honourably, I dare aver, and to
the very letter of the bargain, I am, I repeat, for much I repeat,
given my commission in Fraser's Highlanders. But, of a settlement in
the larger spirit which the inclusion of Corgarff would have implied, I
have no intelligence, and it is conceivable that I may get none.

"Therefore I may remain at Quebec with the Fraser Highlanders so long
as they continue here, and, when they go hence, still remain as an
independent gentleman, provided I were, by happy chance, shall I say?
to find genial companionship. I am not old, not of the sort ever to
grow actually old, but the excursions of life have wearied me, and I
begin to sigh for a permanent holding ground, the anchorage of rest
which should come to us all.

"That desire, if I may make you a great confidence, would satisfy
itself in a woman of the qualities of Mistress Marget Forbes. I do no
more than quote her because she is known to us both, and therefore she
makes clear the exact shade of my meaning. But I imply no freedom with
her name, except what the honouring of it carries, and if any man
implied anything more she would know how to answer him. She has, I
will say, the tang of the Forb