A sad and sorry task it is to follow the lapse of a fine young fellow, from the straight line of truth and honour, into the crooked ways of shame. Hilary loved Mabel still, with all his better heart and soul; her pure and kind and playful glance, and the music of her true voice, never wholly departed from him. In the hot infatuation to which (like many wiser and older men) he could not help but yield himself, from time to time a sudden pang of remorse and of good love seized him. Keenly alive to manly honour, and to the goodness of womankind, he found himself playing false to both, and he hated himself when he thought of it. But the worst of him was that he did not think habitually and steadfastly; he talked to himself, and he thought of himself, but he very seldom examined himself. He felt that he was a very good fellow, in the main, and meant no harm; and if he set up for a solid character, who would ever believe him? The world had always insisted upon it that he was only a trifler; and the world’s opinion is very apt to create what it anticipates. He offered excuses enough to himself, as soon as he saw what a wrong he was doing. But the only excuse a good man can accept is the bitterness of his punishment. The British army, having exhausted havock to the lees and dregs, marched upon its glorious way, in quest of other towns of our allies no less combustible. But many wounded champions were left behind in Badajos, quartered on the grateful townsmen, to recover (if they could) and rejoin as soon as possible. Lieutenant Lorraine was one of these, from the necessity of his case; and Major Clumps managed to be another, from his own necessities. But heavily wounded as he was (by one of Don Miguel’s daughters), the fighting Major would never have got himself certified on the sick-list, unless he had known, from the course of the war, that no battle now was imminent. Regardless of his Horace, and too regardful of cruel Glycera, more than too much pined Major Clumps, and would have chanted mournful ditties in a minor key, if nature had only gifted him with any other note but D. Because his junior shone beyond him, with breach of loyal discipline. He might console himself, however, with the solace offered by the sprightly bard--the endless chain of love revolving with links on the wrong cog for ever. Major Clumps was in love with Camilla; the saintly Camilla declined from him with a tender slope towards Hilary; Hilary went downhill too fast with violent pangs towards Claudia; and Claudia rose at the back of the wheel, with her eyes on the distant mountains.