There was a light twinkling in the window of his lodgings over the Saddlers, some three hours afterwards, when a carriage drove rapidly by, bearing a freight of pleasure-seekers home from the ball. Inside were the General and Blanche, the former fast asleep, wrapped in the dreamless slumbers which those enjoy who have reached that time of life when the soundness of the stomach is far more attended to than that of the heart--when sentiment is of small account, but digestion of paramount importance. Age, as it widens the circle of our affections, weakens their intensity, and although proverbially “there is no fool like an old one,” we question if in the present day there are many Anacreons who-- “When they behold the festive train Of dancing youth, are young again;” or who, however little they might object to celebrating her charms “in the bowl,” would, for “soft Bathylla’s sake,” wreathe vine-leaves round their grizzled heads. No: Age is loth to make itself ridiculous in _that_ way; and the General snored and grunted, heartwhole and comfortable, by the side of his pretty niece. How pretty she looked--a little pale from over-excitement and fatigue, but her violet eyes all the deeper and darker from the contrast, whilst none but her maid would have thought the long golden brown hair spoiled by hanging down in those rich, uncurling clusters. She was like the pale blush rose in her bouquet--more winning as it droops in half-faded loveliness than when first it bloomed, bright and crisp, in its native conservatory. The flower yields its fragrance all the sweeter from being shaken by the breeze. Who but a cousin or a brother would have gone on the box to smoke with such a girl as Blanche inside? Yet so it was. Master Charlie, who danced, as he did everything else, with his whole heart and soul, could not forego the luxury of a cigar in the cool night air, after the noise and heat and revelry of the ball. As he puffed volumes of smoke into the air, and watched the bright stars twinkling down through the clear, pure night, his thoughts wandered far--far into the future; and he, too, felt that the majesty of a sad, sweet face had impressed itself on his being--that she had been watching him to-day through his boyish exploits--and that her eye would kindle, her cheek would glow, when military honours and distinction were heaped upon him, as heaped he was resolved they should be, if ever an opportunity offered. To-morrow his career would begin! To-morrow, ay, even to-day (for it was already past midnight) he was to embark for the Cape; and scarce a thought of the bitterness of parting, perhaps for ever, shaded that bright, young imagination, as it sketched out for itself its impossible romance, worth all the material possibilities that have ever been accomplished. So Charlie smoked and pondered, and dreamed of beauty and valour. We do not think he was in very imminent danger of marrying his cousin.