nexhaustible; his kindness
unbounded.

Then money was no object,--hang it, you could pay when you liked; what
signified it? In other words, a bill at thirty-one days, cashed and
discounted by a friend of the major's, would always do. While such were the
unlimited advantages his acquaintance conferred, the sphere of his benefits
took another range. The major had two daughters; Matilda and Fanny were as
well known in the army as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, or Picton, from the Isle
of Wight to Halifax, from Cape Coast to Chatham, from Belfast to the
Bermudas. Where was the subaltern who had not knelt at the shrine of one
or the other, if not of both, and vowed eternal love until a change of
quarters? In plain words, the major's solicitude for the service was such,
that, not content with providing the young officer with all the necessary
outfit of his profession, he longed also to supply him with a comforter for
his woes, a charmer for his solitary hours, in the person of one of his
amiable daughters. Unluckily, however, the necessity for a wife is not
enforced by "general orders," as is the cut of your coat, or the length of
your sabre; consequently, the major's success in the home department of his
diplomacy was not destined for the same happy results that awaited it when
engaged about drill trousers and camp kettles, and the Misses Dalrymple
remained misses through every clime and every campaign. And yet, why was
it so? It is hard to say. What would men have? Matilda was a dark-haired,
dark-eyed, romantic-looking girl, with a tall figure and a slender waist,
with more poetry in her head than would have turned any ordinary brain;
always unhappy, in need of consolation, never meeting with the kindred
spirit that understood her, destined to walk the world alone, her fair
thoughts smothered in the recesses of her own heart. Devilish hard to stand
this, when you began in a kind of platonic friendship on both sides. More
than one poor fellow nearly succumbed, particularly when she came to quote
Cowley, and told him, with tears in her eyes,--

"There are hearts that live and love alone," etc.

I'm assured that this _coup-de-grace_ rarely failed in being followed by
a downright avowal of open love, which, somehow, what between the route
coming, what with waiting for leave from home, etc., never got further than
a most tender scene, and exchange of love tokens; and, in fact, such became
so often the termination, that Power swears