Not that Charlie was as far gone as this: on the contrary, his was an imaginative poetical disposition, easily scorched enough, but almost incapable of being thoroughly _done brown_. Of such men, ladies, we would warn you to beware; the very temperament that clothes you in all the winning attributes of its own ideal can the most easily transfer those fancied attractions to a rival, inasmuch as the charm is not so much yours as his, exists not in your sweet face, but in his heated and inconstant brain. No, the real prize, depend upon it, is a sensible, phlegmatic, matter-of-fact gentleman, anything but “wax to receive,” yet if you can succeed in making an impression, most assuredly “marble to retain.” Such a captive clings to his affections as to his prejudices, and is properly subjected into a tame and willing Benedict in half the time it takes to guess at the intentions of the faithless rover, offering on a dozen shrines an adoration that, however brilliant, is “Like light straw on fire, A fierce but fading flame.” Again was Charlie struck, as he swaggered off to open the door for the ladies, by the graceful movements of Mary’s majestic figure. Again the half-bow with which, as she passed out, she acknowledged his courtesy, made a pleasing impression on the boy’s fancy; and as he lingered for a moment, ere he shut out the rustle of their dresses and the pleasant tones of the women’s voices, and returned to the arm-chair and the claret decanter, he could not help hoping “Uncle Baldwin” would be a little less profuse than usual in his hospitality, and a little less prolix in his narrative. “The young ones drink no wine at all now-a-days,” remarked the General, as Charlie a second time passed the bottle untouched, and his host filled his glass to the brim. “Fault on the right side, my lad; we used to drink too hard formerly--why, bless you, when I encountered Tortoise, of the Queen’s, at the mess of the Kedjeree Irregulars, we sat for seven hours and a half to see one another out, and the two black fellows fainted who were ‘told off’ to bring in claret and pale ale as they were wanted. Tortoise recovered himself wonderfully about the eighth bottle; and if he hadn’t been obliged to be careful on account of a wound in his head, we should have been there now. Drunk! how d’ye mean? Not the least--fact, I assure you.” Charlie got up and fidgeted about, with his back to the fire, but the General would not let him off so easily.