“I was not long in making up my mind. I called for my bill; I packed my clothes; I ordered post-horses; I was ready to start; one item in the bill alone detained me. The frequent occurrence of the enigmatical word ‘crw,’ following my servant’s name, demanded an explanation, which I was in the act of receiving, when a chaise-and-four drove rapidly up to the house. In a moment the blinds were drawn up, and such a head appeared at the window! Let me pause for one moment to drink in the remembrance of that lovely being,--eyes where heaven’s own blue seemed concentrated were shaded by long, deep lashes of the darkest brown; a brow fair, noble, and expansive, at each side of which masses of dark-brown hair waved half in ringlets, half in loose falling bands, shadowing her pale and downy cheek, where one faint rosebud tinge seemed lingering; lips slightly parted, as though to speak, gave to the features all the play of animation which completed this intellectual character, and made up--” “What I should say was a devilish pretty girl,” interrupted Power. “Back the widow against her at long odds, any day,” murmured the adjutant. “She was an angel! an angel!” cried Sparks with enthusiasm. “So was the widow, if you go to that,” said the adjutant, hastily. “And so is Matilda Dalrymple,” said Power, with a sly look at me. “We are all honorable men; eh, Charley?” “Go ahead with the story,” said the skipper; “I’m beginning to feel an interest in it.” “‘Isabella,’ said a man’s voice, as a large, well-dressed personage assisted her to alight,--‘Isabella, love, you must take a little rest here before we proceed farther.’ “‘I think she had better, sir,’ said a matronly-looking woman, with a plaid cloak and a black bonnet. “They disappeared within the house, and I was left alone. The bright dream was past: she was there no longer; but in my heart her image lived, and I almost felt she was before me. I thought I heard her voice, I saw her move; my limbs trembled; my hands tingled; I rang the bell, ordered my trunks back again to No. 5, and as I sank upon the sofa, murmured to myself, ‘This is indeed love at first sight.’” “How devilish sudden it was,” said the skipper. “Exactly like camp fever,” responded the doctor. “One moment ye are vara well; the next ye are seized wi’ a kind of shivering; then comes a kind of mandering, dandering, travelling a’overness.” “D---- the camp fever,” interrupted Power.