It was not easy to get a quiet half hour in the Barracks, especially at the present exciting period--the approaching Doncaster meeting; so in order to enjoy an uninterrupted conference, Burton and I mounted our horses, and took the least frightful of the roads round Carrington. I endeavoured to convey to my companion some idea of the impression stamped on my mind by the few days I had spent at A----; its peace and simplicity, it's freedom from monotony and ennui! but it would not do; Burton was, as I think I have said, a kind-hearted, high minded fellow, but singularly free from imagination. I fancy he had met a few harder rubs in his contact with the world than I had; not that he ever talked of his own circumstances, but it was evident he was not rich. "All this is very fine," said he, at the end of my elaborate description, "and you might like the novelty of the thing for a week or so; but take my word for it, at the end of a fortnight, you would be drawing comparisons between your philosophic society of painters and musicians, and that of your discarded Regiment, anything but favourable to the former." "No, I do not believe it! I have for a long time felt a weariness and distaste for the life I am leading, without a notion or a hope of anything better; I do not know why, except that at thirty one begins to tire of the eternal sameness of the mess table, country quarters, slow promotion, and no very particular occupation. Up to five and twenty, military life may have its charms, but then it begins to lose its _soi disant_ attractions. I suppose it was the dearth of variety, and the vain hope of getting up something like excitement, that induced me to make a fool of myself by plunging into various extravagances of late; they will cost me dear enough; I wish they had put me to a desk instead of buying me a commission. It's too bad to think that at my age I am no further on in the world than I was at eighteen, and unfit for anything except leading a charge or riding a steeple chase; and the brute that gave us a great dinner the other day, and bored Sedley about his 'Ock,' what was his name? 'Mogg?' ay Mogg! How old do you think the savage?" "Fifty-five, perhaps." "Not more than twenty-five years my senior, and began life, as an errand boy! I should like to know what and where I shall be at fifty-five; a wretched old half-pay; speculating how long I can make a ten-and-sixpenny hat last; with a bed-room in Leicester Square, and my address at the Senior United Service Club; and mine was a boyhood of _bon bons_, bowing tutors, and Shetland ponies." "Why, Egerton, you are quite eloquent! I think your excursion to A---- has only served to open your eyes to the miseries you were before unconscious of; I'd prefer happy ignorance; I conclude the English of all this is, that Miss Vernon's angelic voice and beautiful eyes incline you to matrimony, while common sense warns you off, eh?"