ne day there rode up to the door a gorgeous officer, hot
from the minister's levee, in scarlet and gold, with an order like a
star-fish glittering on his breast. His servant, a private soldier,
rode behind him, and, slipping hastily from his saddle, held his
master's horse while he dismounted. Just then Captain Cowen came out
for his afternoon walk. He started, and cried out, "Colonel
Barrington!"

"Ay, brother," cried the other, and instantly the two officers
embraced, and even kissed each other, for that feminine custom had not
yet retired across the Channel; and these were soldiers who had fought
and bled side by side, and nursed each other in turn; and your true
soldier does not nurse by halves: his vigilance and tenderness are an
example to women, and he rustleth not.

Captain Cowen invited Colonel Barrington to his room, and that warrior
marched down the passage after him, single file, with long brass spurs
and sabre clinking at his heels; and the establishment ducked and
smiled, and respected Captain Cowen for the reason we admire the moon.

Seated in Cowen's room, the new-comer said, heartily, "Well, Ned, I
come not empty-handed. Here is thy pension at last;" and handed him a
parchment with a seal like a poached egg.

Cowen changed color, and thanked him with an emotion he rarely
betrayed, and gloated over the precious document. His cast-iron
features relaxed, and he said, "It comes in the nick of time, for now I
can send my dear Jack to college."

This led somehow to an exposure of his affairs. He had just L110 a
year, derived from the sale of his commission, which he had invested,
at fifteen per cent, with a well-known mercantile house in the City.
"So now," said he, "I shall divide it all in three; Jack will want two
parts to live at Oxford, and I can do well enough here on one." The
rest of the conversation does not matter, so I dismiss it and Colonel
Barrington for the time. A few days afterward Jack went to college,
and Captain Cowen reduced his expenses, and dined at the shilling
ordinary, and, indeed, took all his moderate repasts in public.

Instead of the severe and reserved character he had worn while his son
was with him, he now shone out a boon companion, and sometimes kept the
table in a roar with his marvellous mimicries of all the characters,
male or female, that lived in the inn or frequented it, and sometimes
held them breathless with adventures, dangers, intrigues, in which a
le