yoke of the English
government. At the request of Viscount Seaton, the then governor,
additional troops were sent from England to restore order. When they
arrived, they, and the other regiments stationed at Corfu, were
quartered on the inhabitants of the various islands.

Oriental ideas on the subject of women still existed in this
half-Eastern region. Ladies hardly ever appeared at any of the
entertainments. If a dinner was given none but men were present. Many
stories were told of the expedients resorted to by English officers in
their endeavours to institute a closer intercourse with the female
portion of the population. Now that troops were quartered in their homes
this state of things was speedily changed. Young ladies were induced to
join their guests in riding, boating, and walking expeditions. Picnics
were instituted at which people got lost in the woods, and did not
return until the small hours of the morning, pleasure boats went ashore,
necessitating the rescue of lovely ladies from the danger of the deep;
the so-called "pleasure boats" being presumably some of the numerous
ferry boats that plied to and fro between the islands.

But in telling the love story of Charles Hearn and Rosa Tessima, there
is really no need to conjure up imaginary shipwrecks, or lost pathways.
Good-looking, clever, a smart officer, handling sword or guitar with
equal dexterity, singing an Irish or Italian love song with a melodious
tenor voice, Charles Hearn was gifted with all the qualifications for
the captivation of a young girl's fancy, and by all accounts he had
never allowed these qualifications to deteriorate for want of use.

Only the other day, I was looking over some old papers in an Irish
country house with a friend. Amongst them we came across a poem by
Charles Bush Hearn, written from Correagh, the Hearns' place in County
Westmeath, to a lady who at that time was very beautiful and an heiress.
A lock of hair was enclosed:--

"Dearest and nearest to my heart,
Thou art fairer than the silver moon,
And I trust to see thee soon."

There are quite half-a-dozen verses of the same quality ending up with
the following:--

"Adieu, sweet maid! my heart still bleeds with love
And evermore will beat for thee!!"

"Alas, I am no poet!" Lafcadio exclaims, half a century later. The power
of song was apparently not a gift his father had to bequeath.