But la petite Madelaine was soon to be invested with a most important office; one, however, that was by no means to supersede her character of Nobody, but, enigmatical as it may sound, to double her usefulness in that capacity--while, on private and particular occasions, she was to enact a _somebody_ of infinite consequence--that of confidante in a love affair--as la belle cousine was pleased to term her _liaison_ with a very handsome and elegant young officer, who, after some faint opposition on the part of her parents, was duly installed at St Hilaire as the accepted and acknowledged lover of its beautiful heiress. Walter Barnard (for he was of English birth and parentage), the youngest of three brothers, the elder of whom was a baronet, was most literally a soldier of fortune, his portion, at his father's death, amounting to no more than a pair of colours in a marching regiment--and the splendid income thereunto annexed. But high in health and hope, and "all the world before him where to choose"--of high principles--simple and unvitiated habits--the object of the love of many friends, and the esteem of all his brother officers--the young man was rather disposed to consider his lot in life as peculiarly fortunate, till the pressure of disease fell heavy on him, and he rose from a sick-bed which had held him captive many weeks, the victim of infectious fever, so debilitated in constitution as to be under the necessity of obtaining leave of absence from his regiment, for the purpose (peremptorily insisted on by his physician) of seeking the perfect change of air and scene which was essential to effect his restoration. He was especially enjoined to try the influence of another climate--that of France was promptly decided on--not only from the proximity of that country (a consideration of no small weight in the young soldier's prudential calculations), but because a brother officer was about to join a part of his family then resident at Caen in Normandy, and the pleasure of travelling with him settled the point of Walter's destination _so far_--and, as it fell out, even to that _other_ station in the route of life, only second in awfulness to the "bourne from whence no traveller returns." His English friends, who had been some years inhabitants of Caen, were acquainted with many French families in that town and its vicinity, and, among others, Walter was introduced by them at the Chateau de St Hilaire, where the Protestant English were always welcomed with marked hospitality. The still languishing health of the young soldier excited peculiar interest; he was invited to make frequent trials of the fine air of the chateau and its noble domain. A very few sufficed to convince him that it was far more salubrious than the confined atmosphere of Caen; and very soon the fortunate invalid was installed in all the rights and privileges of "L'Ami de la Maison."