greeable
to that pretty ward, after having, to the general's great surprise,
introduced himself to him as his son; while Charles, who had rushed into
the room, warm-heartedly to fling himself into his father's arms, was
repelled on the spot for his affection: General Tracy, with a military
air, excused himself from the embrace, extending a finger to the unknown
gentleman, with somewhat of offended dignity.

At last, down came the wife: our general at once perceived himself
mistaken in the matter of Mrs. Green; and, coldly bowing to the
bedizened dame, acknowledged her pretensions with a courteous--

"Mrs. General Tracy, allow me to introduce to you Miss Emily Warren, the
daughter of a very particular friend of mine:--Miss Warren, Mrs. Tracy."

For other welcomings, mutual astonishment at each other's fat, some
little sorrowful talk of the twenty years ago, and some dull paternal
jest about this dozen feet of sons, made up the chilly meeting: and the
slender thread of sentimentals, which might possibly survive it, was
soon snapt by paying post-boys, orders after luggage, and devouring
tiffin.

The only persons who felt any thing at all, were Mrs. Tracy, vexed at
her dishabille, and mortified at so cool a reception of, what she hoped,
her still unsullied beauties; and Charles, poor fellow, who ran up to
his studious retreat, and soothed his grief, as best he might, with
philosophic fancies: it was so cold, so heartless, so unkind a greeting.
Romantic youth! how should the father have known him for a son?

CHAPTER IV.

THE GENERAL AND HIS WARD.

It is surprising what a change twenty years of a tropical sun can make
in the human constitution. The captain went forth a good-looking,
good-tempered man, destitute neither of kind feelings nor masculine
beauty: the general returned bloated, bilious, irascible, entirely
selfish, and decidedly ill-favoured. Such affections as he ever had
seemed to have been left behind in India--that new world, around which
now all his associations and remembrances revolved; and the reserve
(clearly reproduced in Charles), the habit of silence whereof we took
due notice in the spring-tide of his life, had now grown, perhaps from
some oppressive secret, into a settled, moody, continuous taciturnity,
which made his curious wife more vexed at him than ever; for,
notwithstanding all the news he must have had to tell her, the company
of John George Julian Tracy proved to his long-expecta