"Captain Egerton does not forget his friends--as soldiers are said to do," said Gilpin. "Pooh, pshaw!" cried Winter, "he was bored by a bad sea voyage; sea-sickness is at the bottom of half the sentimental adieus to my native shores, that you read in albums and annuals, wait until he gets among his tiger-shooting brother officers, or the Bombay belles, he'll soon forget the sum-total of all he left behind--stuff!" "I do not quite agree with you, Mr. Winter," replied Kate. "I think Captain Egerton will always remember our little circle, kindly, and be delighted to see any member of it again. Beyond this we have no right to expect; he would not charge his memory with regrets for people, who do not let his absence interfere with their pleasures or occupations." "Bravo, Miss Vernon! if he was some worthy curate, in a white tie and spectacles, you would not bustle up so warmly in his defence; but a handsome light dragoon, with moustache, and a long sword and spurs, and saucy 'make way for me look,' is another affair." "Wrong again, Mr. Winter," said Kate. "I see no reason why a Lancer's cap may not cover as good qualities, as a clerical broad-brim--and I have been too long your pupil, not to appreciate form and color." "Good; and if every Lancer was like Captain Egerton, I, for one, would prefer trusting them, even in a confessional, to the white neck-clothed curates," chimed in the organist. "In truth, though Egerton is the type of a class I have always disliked, I cannot help liking him--especially when I think of his--pooh, pooh--I was forgetting--" And Winter stopped abruptly. "You are mysterious," said the Colonel. "But let me see the _Times_, at your house; I want to read the Indian news, that came by the last mail; and to see Mrs. Winter." "Do you really think you will go to Italy, Miss Vernon?" asked Gilpin. "I fear it is problematical. I long to travel; but grandpapa has some business, and nurse has had a dream, which bodes evil for my wishes." "Oh, the dream ought not to be classed with the business." "I dare confess to you, and to you only," returned Kate, with a smile, "that it seems to shake my hopes far more than the business." "The philosophic Miss Vernon--superstitious!" "No, no! yet, you know-- 'It may be a sound, A tone of music, summer's eve, or spring; A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we're darkly bound.'" "Winter would say it was the east wind." "Perhaps so," said Miss Vernon, "for alas! how ignominiously physical are the causes of many a tenderly poetic mood! not that I am at all addicted to such, but--" "I think it is a mistake to consider everything physical, as despicable," observed Gilpin; "we hear of mere physical force, mere physical wants; but the same hand made and blended our two natures, and we shall be happy and healthy, in proportion as we train both to work in harmony, without giving undue preference to either."