The latter, more particularly that maligned class, “the young men of the present day,” are not prone to put themselves much out of their way for any one, and treat you, fair daughters of England, with a mixture of patronage and carelessness which is far from complimentary. How different you find it when you visit a barrack or are shown over a man-of-war! Respectful deference waits on your every expression, admiring eyes watch your charming movements, and stalwart arms are proffered to assist your delicate steps. Handsome, sunburnt countenances explain to you how the biscuit is served out; or moustaches of incalculable volume wait your answer as to “what polka you choose their band to perform.” You make conquests all around you, and wherever you go your foot is on their necks; but do not for this think that your image never _can_ be effaced from these warlike hearts. A good many of them, even the best-looking ones, have got wives and children at home; and the others, unencumbered though they be, save by their debts, are apt to entertain highly anti-matrimonial sentiments, and to frame their conduct on sundry aphorisms of a very faithless tendency, purporting that “blue water is a certain cure for heart-ache”; that judicious hussars are entitled “to love and to ride away”; with other maxims of a like inconstant nature. Nay, in both services there is a favourite air of inspiriting melody, the burden and title of which, monstrous as it may appear, are these unfeeling words, “The girls we leave behind us!” It is _always_ played on marching out of a town. But however ill our “captain bold” of the present day may behave to “the girl he leaves behind him,” the lady in his front has small cause to complain of remissness or inattention. The mess-room at Hounslow is fitted up with an especial view to the approbation of the fair sex. The band outside ravishes their ears with its enchanting harmony; the officers and male guests dispose themselves in groups with those whose society they most affect; and Blanche finds herself the centre of attraction to sundry dashing warriors, not one of whom would hesitate for an instant to abandon his visions of military distinction, and link himself, his debts, and his moustaches, to the fortunes of the pretty heiress.