I arrived safe at Peebles amongst my old friends, where I was warmly received after an absence of three years; but I did not long remain there till I formed an intimacy with a young woman; and our courtship, like that of many soldiers, was not long; but I would not marry till I returned to the regiment and obtained my Colonel's liberty, that so I might have a better chance of getting her abroad with me, should the regiment, as we expected, be ordered on foreign service. My attachment to this young woman was very sincere; and I gave instructions to the person with whom I had left my bounty money, as formerly mentioned, to give her ten pounds to bear her expenses to the regiment, then in England, when, after obtaining the Colonel's leave to marry her, I should send him a letter to that effect. All being thus settled between us, the time drew nigh when I was to leave my native spot, which was now doubly dear to me. I left Peebles about two o'clock in the morning, in fine moonlight, in the month of September; but it is easier for you, my dear reader, to conceive than for me to describe my situation. I cast many a longing lingering look behind me, and dragged myself by main force out of the view. I was little short of being angry at my preciseness, that I did not marry off hand, and bring the girl with me, whose situation was still more pitiable than my own. We were only two days in Edinburgh, then sailed from Leith Roads for the regiment, which was lying at Horsham, and I was not long there when I had all settled in our favour, and immediately wrote for the young woman; but, as I afterwards discovered, or at least had great reason to suspect, a certain evil-designing person kept up the letters. I waited in anxious suspense for "the girl I left behind me," but I waited in vain. Days were as months, and brought me no relief. At last, to crown my misery, I received a letter from a friend in Peebles, who knew of our agreement, stating, that Jean had almost gone out of her mind about me, and thinking, like too many of my coat, that I was going to prove unfaithful, she went to Edinburgh to inquire about me. There she got no relief to her distracted mind, but only the satisfaction that I had sailed for the regiment at such and such a time. She was now put to her wits end, and in a kind of derangement she wandered to Dumfries, where she had a brother residing, and remained with him for some time. She saw herself like a castaway, for she was ashamed to go back to her place at Peebles, and it being between terms, she could not get into service in a country where she was a stranger: so, in a word, the serjeant of a Highland regiment, an acquaintance of her brother's, paid his addresses to her, and she married him; but scarcely was the festival over when the contents of my letter, through the same channel probably by which it was intercepted originally, reached her ears; and if she was to be pitied before that time, she was not less so then.