Several minutes passed before I could recollect where I was, and how I had come there. When I had in some measure collected my scattered thoughts, and shaken off the heavy lethargic feeling that still weighed upon me, I hastened to seek my beloved little companion, anxiously wondering what could have become of him. I learned at the house where he lived that he had returned very late the night before, apparently tired and excited; and that early this morning he had received orders to join a portion of his regiment that was posted on the lines two miles from the town. When my daily duties were ended I walked off to where the cadet had been sent. He seem oppressed and worn out with fatigue and want of rest; I found him lying on a bank beside his tent thinking sadly on Pepìta, his gay dress disordered, his long dark hair damp and neglected, and his eyes red with weeping. I took the poor child by the hand, and tried to comfort him in my best Spanish, but for a long time he would only answer, me with sobs, and at length he sobbed himself to sleep. I wrapped his little cloak round him, and watched patiently till he awoke, after about an hour's refreshing rest: then he found words, and told me all that had occurred to him since I had gone to sleep at the unlucky entertainment. The host soon pleaded some excuse and left us, when the Englishman immediately proposed play; dice were laid on the table, but the cadet refused for a long time: he had never played in his life, nor felt its horrible temptations. But in his education this maddening vice had not been guarded against; no one had taught him that its beginning, was furious avarice,--its end destruction and despair. He was simply innocent of all knowledge of its pleasures and its woes. The tempter told him that to play was manly, and that if he feared to lose money, he had no spirit. So he played, and lost all he had, and much more. When too tired to go on, he wrote an acknowledgment of what he owed, under the direction of his dangerous associate; and then, very wretched and frightened at what he had done, went home and slept. He would not go, however, till the Englishman promised to see me safely to my billet. I need not add that the promise was not kept. It was about midnight when the cadet went away. My late patient then examined me closely to see that I slept soundly; finding there was but little chance of my interfering with their plans, he quietly shut the door, and left me, hastening to seek his employer and relate his success. A relation of my little friend, residing in the town, had been requested to watch over him, and supply his wants, while remaining at San Sebastian. To this person the captain of carbineers went early the next morning, and by affecting an interest in the boy, as a brother officer, managed to persuade the guardian to request that his ward might be removed at once from the garrison, to save him from the bad company and dissipated habits he had fallen into.