There is no comfort in looking back upon a period when hope was high and unchecked. I have met with men who, in their maudlin moments--usually towards the close of the evening--were actuated by an impulse similar to that which compelled the Ancient Mariner to renew his wondrous tale: and I have heard them on such occasions recount the whole circumstances of their unfortunate wooing, with voices choked by grief, and with tears of tender imbecility. I have observed, however, that, on the morrow succeeding such disclosures, these gentlemen have invariably a shy and sheepish appearance, as though inwardly conscious that they had extended their confidence too far, and rather dubious as to the sincerity of their apparent sympathisers. Warned by their example, I hold it neither profitable nor wise to push my own confessions too far. If Edith gave me at the outset more encouragement than she ought to have done--if she systematically led me to believe that I had made an impression upon her heart--if she honoured me with a preference so marked, that it deceived not only myself, but others--let the blame be hers. But why should I go minutely into the courtship of half a year? As difficult, indeed, and as futile, would it be to describe the alternations of an April day, made up of sunshine and of shower, of cloud and rainbow and storm--sometimes mild and hopeful, then ominous of an eve of tempest. For a long time, I had not the slightest suspicion that I had a rival. I remarked, indeed, with somewhat of dissatisfaction, that Edith appeared to listen too complacently to the commonplace flatteries of the officers who are the habitual haunters of private ball and of public assembly. She danced too often with Ensign Corkingham, flirted rather openly with Major Chawser, and certainly had no business whatever to be present at a military fête and champagne luncheon given at the Castle by these brave defenders of their country. I was not invited to that fête, and the circumstance, as I well remember, was the cause of a week's coolness between us. But it was not until Lieutenant Roper of the dragoons appeared in the field that I felt any particular cause for uneasiness.