! Don't believe a word she says, Miss
Arnold. I am as empty-pated a rattle-skull, as ever was turned raw into
one of her Majesty's regiments--and that's saying a good deal, I can
tell you. But this dear creature here loves a bit of romance in her
heart. What's o'clock?"

"Oh!" looking at the tiniest of watches, "a full two hours to dinner;
and such a day too for a story--and just look at that spreading oak with
the bench under it, and the deer lying crouching there so sweetly, and
the wind just lulling the boughs as it were to rest. Here, nurse, bundle
the baby away to her nursery. Now, _do_, there's a darling Edgar."

"Why, my love, you are making awful preparation. It is almost as
terrible as reading a manuscript to begin a relation, all sitting
solemnly upon a bench under a tree together. There is not much to tell,
poor fellow; only I did pity him from my heart of hearts."

Catherine had her way, and they sat down under the green leafy canopy of
this majestic oak; and she put her arm in her husband's, and her hand
into that of Lettice, and thus sitting between them, loving and beloved,
she listened, the happiest, as she was one of the honestest and best,
of heaven's creatures.

"We were both together at a large rough sort of preparatory school,"
began Edgar, "where there might be above a hundred boys or so. They were
mostly, if not entirely, intended for the military profession, and came
from parents of all sorts of positions and degrees, and of all sorts of
principles, characters, and manners. A very omnium gatherum that school
was, and the ways of it were as rough as in any school. I should think,
they could possibly be. I was a tall, healthy rebel, when I was sent
there, as strong as a little Hercules, and excessively proud of my force
and prowess. A bold, daring, cheerful, merry lad, as ever left his
mother's apron-string; very sorry to quit the dotingest of mothers, and
the happiest of homes, and the pleasantest of fathers; but mighty proud
to come out of the _Gynyseum_, and to be a man, as I thought it high
time I should, in cloth trowsers and jacket, instead of a black velvet
coatee. In I plunged, plump head-foremost amid the vortex, and was soon
in a thousand scrapes and quarrels, battling my way with my fists, and
my merry eye; for they used to tell me the merry eye did more for me
even than my impudence in fighting every thing that would condescend to
fight such a youngster. I was soon established, and t