"Hard? Nonsense! I don't want to see you grow into a puppy. I must give you a lesson now and then, or you'll be spoiled; and then how am I to face Lady Millet after promising what I did?" "Oh, I had a letter from mamma this morning," said the lad; "she sent her kindest regards to you." "Thank her for them," said the young officer. "Well, so the party went off all right, Dick?" "Splendid! You ought to have been there. Gertrude would have been delighted to see you." "Humph! Out of place, my boy. Lady Millet wants a rich husband for your sister. I'm the wrong colour." "Not you. I don't want Gerty to have someone she does not like." "But I thought you said that there was a Mr Huish, or some such name?" "Well, yes, there is; but it may not come off. Mamma hates the Huishes." "You're a character, Dick!" said the officer laughingly. "There, I'm going to make you dissipated to get you square, so light your cigar, my lad; I won't bully you any more," he continued, smiling good-humouredly, "and you may shave till your beard comes if you like, and wax your--your eyebrows--I mean moustache, and dandify yourself a little, for I like to see you smart; but an you love me, as the poet says, no more of that confounded lisp. Now then, you've been reconnoitring, have you, and spying out the barrenness of the land?" "Yes, and it's a horrible one-eyed sort of a place. Why don't you come and have a look?" "I shall presently. Seen the Palace?" "I had a walk round and went into the gardens, which are all very well-- old-fashioned, you know; but the private apartments are full of old maids." "Ah, yes; maiden ladies and widows. Sort of aristocratic union, I've heard. Good thing for you, Dick." "Why?" said the lad, who had again perched himself on the edge of the table and was complacently glancing at his boots. "Because your inflammable young heart will not be set on fire by antique virgins and blushing widows of sixty." "I don't know so much about that," cried the lad excitedly, taking off his natty little foraging cap. "Marcus, dear boy, I was walking round a cloister sort of place with a fountain in the middle, and then through a blank square court, and I saw three of the loveliest women, at one of the windows, I ever saw in my life." "Distance lends enchantment to the view, my dear boy. If you had gone closer you would have seen the wrinkles and the silvery hairs, if they had not been dyed." "I tell you they weren't old," continued Dick, whose eyes sparkled like those of a girl. "I'm not a marrying man, for reasons best known to my banker and my creditors." "Two of them were dark and the other was fair," continued the lad, revelling in his description. "Oh, those two dark girls! You never saw such eyes, such hair, such lovely complexions. Juno-like--that they were. I was quite struck." "Foolish?" "No, no; the Lelys in one of the rooms are nothing to them." "Lilies?"