Care, however, although, as Horace tells us, “she sits behind the horseman,” is a guest whose visits are but little encouraged by the light dragoon. Our gallant hussars were not inclined to mope down at Hounslow after their guests had returned to town, and the last carriage had scarcely driven off with its fair freight, ere phaeton, buggy, riding-horse, and curricle were put in requisition, to take their military owners back to the metropolis; that victim of discipline, the orderly officer, being alone left to console himself in his solitude, as he best might, with his own reflections and the society of a water-spaniel. To-morrow morning they must be again on the road, to reach head-quarters in time for parade; but to-morrow morning is a long way off from gentlemen who live every hour of their lives; so away they go, each on his own devices, but one and all resolved to make the most of the present, and glitter, whilst they may, in the sunshine of their too brief noon. * * * * * St. George’s clock tolls one, and Blanche has been asleep for hours in her quiet room at the back of the house in Grosvenor Square. Pure thoughts and pleasant dreams have hovered round the young girl’s pillow, and the last image present to her eyes has been the kind, handsome face of Major D’Orville--the hero who, commanding to all besides, is so gentle, so considerate, so tender with her alone. “Perhaps,” thought she, as the midnight rain beat against her window-panes, “he is even now going his bleak rounds at Hounslow” (Blanche had a vague idea that the hussars spent the night in patrolling the heath), “wrapped in his cloak, on that dear white horse, very likely thinking of _me_. How such a man is thrown away, with his kindly feelings, and his noble mind, and his courageous heart. ‘Nobody to care for,’ he said; ‘alone in the world’;” and little Blanche sighed a sigh of that pity which is akin to a softer feeling, and experienced for an instant that startling throb with which love knocks at the door, like some unwelcome visitor, ere habit has emboldened him to walk up-stairs, unbidden, and make himself at home. Let us see how right the maiden was in her conjectures, and follow the Major through his bleak rounds, and his night of military hardships.