A day or two reconciled me to my fate, especially as Saturday came very rapidly round, and sometimes forced itself into the middle of the week. I devoted myself to my new pursuits--was as attentive a clerk as if I had never heard the name of a theatre--rose gradually to a confidential post in the counting-house--and saw the origin of the interest taken in me by Mr Pybus. He was agent for my uncle, the general, and had instructions and authority from him to advance whatever might be required for the comfort of my mother or my advancement in life. I need not tell how kindly I was treated by the Indian warrior when he came home on a special mission to the Government--how I refused his offer to accompany him back to the scene of his command--and how he winked and poked me in a facetious manner in the ribs as he perceived the cause of my wishing to remain in England. Modesty had now taken possession of me in place of the vaulting ambition which had so often made me fall on the other side. I never ventured to put into words the sentiments that filled my heart with regard to Emily Pybus. A clerk in her father's office--a dependant on my uncle's bounty--a rejected author--a broken-down stage-player--I considered myself too far below her in position to aspire so high. But time rolled on--the Saturdays came round with unfailing regularity; and when I was twenty-three, my kind old uncle, who had distinguished himself greatly by some prodigious increase of the Company's revenue, and probably his own, wrote me a letter to say he entirely approved of my conduct--that he had accepted a baronetcy, and got a clause inserted in the patent insuring the reversion of the title to me;--and, in short, about three months ago, we sent round to our friends a couple of nice little calling-cards, tied together with a silver thread, on which was printed Mr and Mrs Charles Bone, Wilton Place, Belgravia. SKETCHES FROM THE CAPE.[2] [2] _The Cape and the Kafirs; or, Notes of Five Years' Residence in South Africa._ By ALFRED W. COLE. London, 1852.