“I am afraid he is,” said another; “but there’s some allowance to be made for him. Thompson, who knows his family at home, tells me he was brought up by a doating grandmother, who spoilt him, indulged him to the top of his bent, never contradicted—money _ad libitum_—things all his own way: hence pride, selfishness, and an inordinate love of pleasure, the natural results. Never send your children to be brought up by grandmothers; owing to their unbounded affection, which passes through the parent as through a lens, they’re sure to spoil them.” A rubber of whist and a game of chess concluded the evening very pleasantly at the colonel’s. At parting, he told me with great kindness that he hoped soon to see me on parade, and that he had desired the adjutant to take me in hand, and give me a little preliminary instruction. The next day Rattleton took me another round of visits to some of the married men of his acquaintance, many of whom seemed agreeable people, but possessed of various degrees of refinement; also to the houses of two or three widow ladies residing at the station, all of whom had pretty daughters or nieces seeking that which it was natural and proper they should seek, eligible partners, youthful “John Andersons,” with whom to jog up the hill of life together. It was abundantly clear, and I soon discovered, that Rattleton’s little affair of the heart had got wind pretty extensively, for wherever we went he had to run the gauntlet of banter and sly innuendo in one shape or another. Like Mr. Dangle, however, with his “volunteer fatigue” and “solicited solicitations,” he bore it all very philosophically. Tom was a handsome fellow, and it was well known that he was to have the first vacant regimental staff appointment, his aunt being married to a first cousin of the Governor-General’s military secretary’s second wife’s first husband. Under these circumstances, my friend ranked as an “eligible,” and the old ladies could not forgive him altogether for passing over the more valid claims of their daughters and nieces; and the daughters and nieces, though they endeavoured to conceal their chagrin under the guise of a very transparent indifference, were evidently not a whit more satisfied with Mr. Rattleton’s presumed election in favour of Miss Julia Heartwell. The first widow to whom we paid our respects was Mrs. Brownstout; the relict of a field officer who had fallen a victim to jungle fever several years before, and who was residing in great respectability on her pension at Barrackpore, as many other widows did and do. She had lived for some time in England after her husband’s death, but quitted it after a time in disgust, finding both climate and people too cold to suit the warmth of an Indian temperament; her frankness startled folks, and her unreserved expression of opinion was looked upon, amongst the worldly-wise, as the evidence of a doubtful sanity.