But Willy Douglas of the Black Watch, who had been all this time comfortably recruiting about Perth and Dunkeld (thanks to his uncle, the Duke of Douglas), was wont to remind her that the 40th Regiment had been more than _forty_ years abroad,* and the battalion of Montgomery might be quite as long away. * Fact in 1764. After three years had passed without letters arriving, Emmy still mourned and loved Louis more than ever; while well-meaning friends, who never thought of consulting the army list, assured her that he was killed; but it availed them nought. Then five years elapsed, and in all that time there came no letter; yet, when taunted that Louis had forgotten her, she replied as Cleopatra did to Alexis when he advised her to deem her lover cruel, inconstant, and ungrateful:-- "I cannot, if I could; these thoughts were vain; Faithless, ungrateful, cruel if he be, I still must love him!" But time changes all things. A pleasing and sad recollection was now beginning to replace her lively affection for Charters. Tired of worshipping one who had become little more than a beautiful statue, her admirers had disappeared gradually, till the assiduous Douglas alone remained in the position of a tacit and privileged dangler. Willy was an honest-hearted fellow, and with his real love for Emmy there was mingled much of pity for what she suffered on account of his "devilish neglectful rival," as he termed Charters. Emmy had long been insensible to his addresses; but as Douglas, who was very prepossessing, was the nephew of the last Duke of Douglas, and had a handsome fortune, her father frequently, earnestly, and affectionately urged her to accept his proposals; while her mother reminded her that she was past eight-and-twenty now; and added, that in a new and more fortunate attachment--in the love that is supposed to follow marriage--she would forget the sorrows of the past. But Emmy, though knowing that this was all mere sophistry, was about to give a silent acquiescence to their schemes, when, turning over the leaves of an old periodical, one day, in a dreamy and listless mood, her eye fell on the following:-- "A union of fortunes, _not_ a union of hearts, is the thing generally aimed at in marriage, and, by those who esteem themselves _prudent_ people, is thought the only rational view. There is no divine ordinance more frequently disobeyed than that wherein God forbids human sacrifices, for in no other light can most modern marriages be viewed. Brazen images, indeed, are not the objects of their worship; a purer metal is their deity. Every one who reads in ancient history of human sacrifices, exclaims against the horrid practice and trembles at the narrative, though there is scarcely one of the female readers, if she is of a marriageable age, who is not ready to deck her person, like an adorned victim, in the hope of tempting some _golden idol_ to receive a free-will offering."