Miss Culpepper was somewhat of her mother's build. She might have been twenty years old, and was, for a girl of her age, exuberantly fat; yet as her skin and complexion were not coarse, many thought her handsome; but she promised to be as large as her mother, and certainly was not at all suited for a wife to a subaltern of a marching regiment. "Who have we here?" said Mrs Culpepper to her husband, in a sort of low croak; for she was so smothered with fat that she could not get her voice out. "Well, I hardly know," replied the gentleman, wiping his forehead; "but I've my own opinion." "Mercy on me, how very like!" exclaimed Miss Culpepper, looking at me, and then at her father. "Would not you like to go into the garden, little boy?" continued she: "there, through the passage, out of the door,--you can't miss it." As this was almost a command, I did not refuse to go; but as soon as I was in the garden, which was a small patch of ground behind the house, as the window to the parlour was open, and my curiosity was excited by their evidently wishing to say something which they did not wish me to hear, I stopped under the window and listened. "The very picture of him," continued the young lady. "Yes, yes, very like indeed," croaked the old one. "All I know is," said Mr Culpepper, "Captain Delmar has desired me to fit him out, and that he pays all the expenses." "Well, that's another proof," said the young lady; "he wouldn't pay for other people's children." "He was brought down here by a very respectable-looking, I may say interesting, and rather pretty woman,--I should think about thirty." "Then she must have been handsome when this boy was born," replied the young lady: "I consider that another proof. Where is she?" "Went away this morning by the day-coach, leaving the boy with the captain, who sent his coxswain for him." "There's mystery about that," rejoined the daughter, "and therefore I consider it another proof." "Yes," said Mr Culpepper, "and a strong one too. Captain Delmar is so high and mighty, that he would not have it thought that he could ever condescend to have an intrigue with one beneath him in rank and station, and he has sent her away on that account, depend upon it." "Just so; and if that boy is not a son of Captain Delmar, I'm not a woman." "I am of that opinion," replied the father, "and therefore I offered to take charge of him, as the captain did not know what to do with him till his uniform was ready." "Well," replied Miss Culpepper, "I'll soon find out more. I'll pump everything that he knows out of him before he leaves us; I know how to put that and that together." "Yes," croaked the fat mother; "Medea knows how to put that and that together, as well as any one." "You must be very civil and very kind to him," said Mr Culpepper; "for depend upon it, the very circumstance of the captain's being compelled to keep the boy at a distance will make him feel more fond of him."