_Fouette, cocher!_ The horses squeal. The huge machine jingles over the road, and rattles down the street. Farewell, pretty Charlotte, with your sweet face and sweet voice and kind eyes! But why, pray, is Mr. Philip Firmin not here to say farewell too? Before the diligence got under way, the Baynes boys had fought, and quarrelled, and wanted to mount on the imperial or cabriolet of the carriage, where there was only one passenger as yet. But the conductor called the lads off, saying that the remaining place was engaged by a gentleman, whom they were to take up on the road. And who should this turn out to be? Just outside the town a man springs up to the imperial; his light luggage, it appears, was on the coach already, and that luggage belonged to Philip Firmin. Ah, monsieur! and that was the reason, was it, why they were so merry yesterday—the parting day? Because they were not going to part just then. Because, when the time of execution drew near, they had managed to smuggle a little reprieve! Upon my conscience, I never heard of such imprudence in the whole course of my life! Why, it is starvation—certain misery to one and the other. “I don’t like to meddle in other people’s affairs,” I say to my wife; “but I have no patience with such folly, or with myself for not speaking to General Baynes on the subject. I shall write to the general.” “My dear, the general knows all about it,” says Charlotte’s, Philip’s (in my opinion) most injudicious friend. “We have talked about it, and, like a man of sense, the general makes light of it. ‘Young folks will be young folks,’ he says; ‘and, by George! ma’am, when I married—I should say, when Mrs. B. ordered me to marry her—she had nothing, and I but my captain’s pay. People get on, somehow. Better for a young man to marry, and keep out of idleness and mischief; and, I promise you, the chap who marries my girl gets a treasure. I like the boy for the sake of my old friend Phil Ringwood. I don’t see that the fellows with the rich wives are much the happier, or that men should wait to marry until they are gouty old rakes.’ And, it appears, the general instanced several officers of his own acquaintance; some of whom had married when they were young and poor; some who had married when they were old and sulky; some who had never married at all. And he mentioned his comrade, my own uncle, the late Major Pendennis, whom he called a selfish old creature, and hinted that the major had jilted some lady in early life, whom he would have done much better to marry.”