Yet what may not the spirit anticipate in its future? and what power may not be momentarily lent it? even here a foretaste of that future. The very depth of her emotion soothed Kate; she felt a gradual calm stealing over her--was it that her wild yearning had accomplished its end? About the same time, it might be the same night, far away, a deep blue, star-lit eastern sky was shining in still beauty over the cantonments of an English regiment, and Colonel Egerton was sleeping the restless disturbed sleep of a low fever. He wakes suddenly--fully roused--with a sense that he was wanted--that he was called. Yet he had not dreamt, at least, distinctly; nor was it till after some moments' thought, he connected that sudden impression with Miss Vernon--for Egerton was too full of rational energy to have his mind perpetually filled with one image. He had loved Kate, and still, at times, thought of her with deep tenderness; but a life of activity pleased and occupied him. Parting with her had swept away the light-hearted, buoyant gaiety of his early days; but left enough of cheerfulness to make life still very enjoyable. Time, absence, silence, above all, Burton's report, not long received, were gradually doing their work--ere long, his heart would have been free to cherish another, well and truly; yet never, oh, never, with the same exquisitely tender, pure unselfish love which she had breathed over the chaotic surface of his life; he still might taste the sweetness of the grape; but the unspeakable loveliness of its first fresh bloom was breathed upon--and vanished. Colonel Egerton was worse the next morning; the regimental surgeon shook his head, and, at length, obtained a hearing, when, for the fourth time, he suggested native air. * * * * * Life at Carrington, with its innumerable small trials, is too monotonous to be carefully recorded. Kate had much to suffer; yet it was not all suffering. She soon perceived the various _rôles_ enacted by the family. Mr. Wilson was a thorough domestic tyrant, intense selfishness pervaded the whole party, except, perhaps, Mrs. Wilson. The eldest son was a pedant, a dry, cold calculating machine, who seemed chiefly to value his own unblemished character, because it gave him a right to be implacable to the failings of others. It is strange to write thus of the character of a boy not seventeen; but none could connect him with the faintest outline of that lovely, erring thing called "youth." He was, however, an unceasing source of pride to his family; and even Pem., if he had an idea beyond his dinner, looked upon his brother as something quite extraordinary.