been steadily following our seaward track with a fair
breeze, and the long pennant pointed ever to the land where our ardent
expectations were hurrying before it.

The latest accounts which had reached us from the Peninsula told that our
regiment was almost daily engaged; and we burned with impatience to share
with the others the glory they were reaping. Power, who had seen service,
felt less on this score than we who had not "fleshed our maiden swords;"
but even he sometimes gave way, and when the wind fell toward sunset, he
would break out into some exclamation of discontent, half fearing we should
be too late. "For," said he, "if we go on in this way the regiment will be
relieved and ordered home before we reach it."

"Never fear, my boys, you'll have enough of it. Both sides like the work
too well to give in; they've got a capital ground and plenty of spare
time," said the major.

"Only to think," cried Power, "that we should be lounging away our idle
hours when these gallant fellows are in the saddle late and early. It is
too bad; eh, O'Malley? You'll not be pleased to go back with the polish on
your sabre? What will Lucy Dashwood say?"

This was the first allusion Power had ever made to her, and I became red to
the very forehead.

"By-the-bye," added he, "I have a letter for Hammersley, which should
rather have been entrusted to your keeping."

At these words I felt cold as death, while he continued:--

"Poor fellow! certainly he is most desperately smitten; for, mark me, when
a man at his age takes the malady, it is forty times as severe as with a
younger fellow, like you. But then, to be sure, he began at the wrong end
in the matter; why commence with papa? When a man has his own consent for
liking a girl, he must be a contemptible fellow if he can't get her; and as
to anything else being wanting, I don't understand it. But the moment you
begin by influencing the heads of the house, good-by to your chances with
the dear thing herself, if she have any spirit whatever. It is, in fact,
calling on her to surrender without the honors of war; and what girl would
stand that?"

"It's vara true," said the doctor; "there's a strong speerit of opposition
in the sex, from physiological causes."

"Curse your physiology, old Galen; what you call opposition, is that
piquant resistance to oppression that makes half the charm of the sex.
It is with them--with reverence be it spoken--as with horses: the dull,
heavy-sho