"She has magnificent hair," thought he after a pause, "I suppose it's all her own--just the colour I like, though she has a ridiculous fashion of binding it up about her head. Perhaps she thinks it makes her look like a Madonna;" here he took a long puff at his cigar. "Well, I could not fall in love with a Madonna, it's not my style, and I do not think she is like one either; an angel's eyes don't flash like hers do sometimes. Perhaps Robert thinks his wife an angel, there is no accounting for tastes, but if Miss Neville has grown one iota like her, I'll--" here he paused again, "I'll have a flirtation with her, and--and then go back to my regiment." The idea made him savage, and throwing away his cigar, he halted until the groom who rode behind came up. "You can ride on, home, Tom, I don't want you," said he, and then he listened to the clatter of the horse's hoofs on the hard frosty ground, until they faded away in the distance out of hearing. "We are all selfish," mused he, "that man would have ridden more slowly and carefully had it been his own horse. I dare say though, I am just as selfish if I only knew it." He lit another cigar, and rode on some miles without interruption, until stopped by the Brampton Turnpike Gate. "Hulloa!" called he. But no notice was taken of his repeated shouts, although a faint gleam of light shone partly across the road from a slight crack in one of the shutters, showing that some of the inmates were at least awake. "Confound the fellow!" muttered Charles as he called again. When the door suddenly opened, and the figure of a man stood in the doorway. "I tell yer I can undo it very well myself, and will too, so just stand fast," said he in a thick voice, to somebody inside the cottage, while and with anything but a steady gait he managed somehow between a shuffle and scramble to get over the one step of the cottage,--lifting his legs at the same time, as if the steps was so many feet, instead of inches high,--and reach the gate. Here, steadying himself by leaning both arms across the top, he looked up to where Charles Linchmore stood. "I say young, man!" exclaimed he. "What do yer mean by hollering and bawling in that way? Havn't yer any patience. If ye're in sich a mortal hurry, why don't yer take and jump the gate? Eh!" "Open the gate, you blockhead, or I will make you," exclaimed Charles, angrily. "Speak civil, can't yer? I ain't going to open the gate with them words for my pains." Just then the moon emerged from behind a cloud, and shone full on Charles Linchmore's face. The man recognised him in a moment, notwithstanding his tipsy state. "In course, Sir, I'll open, who says I shan't? Bless yer sir, I'll open it as wide as ever he'll go. Dang me! if I can though," muttered he, as he fumbled at the fastening.