"No, thank heaven!" said the Colonel; "if I had not meddled with other boys, who are less within my control. I have two vexatious letters this morning--one from that trustee I told you I had written to about my nephew: he will not do anything for him." "I thought as much," said Mrs. Melrose, with a little nod of her head. "Take my advice another time, Edward: never you put any dependence on these business men; what do they care for a young man's heart or spirit, when it's interest and compound interest that's in the question? I saw a great deal of them when I was young. My uncle that we were sent home to was a merchant, you remember: we used to spend our holidays there. I was very near marrying in that way myself, if I had had my own will at seventeen. They're very good fathers and husbands, and the like of that; but put a question of what's good for a man, and what's good for his money, before them, and they aye put the last first. Yes, yes, I had very little hopes from that; but you, you see, you're one of the sanguine kind--you are a man that never will learn." "So it appears," said the Colonel; "and now, as though that were not enough, here's that hot-headed young Musgrave I told you of--he about whom I wrote to old Armitage, of the Fifty-ninth, and to Sir George--a famous young fellow!--a boy you'd make a pet of, as sure as life; here's a letter from _him_, informing me that he can't impose upon my goodness, and all that sort of thing, and that he's off to London. I have no doubt in my own mind," said the Colonel, solemnly, "that at this moment the lad's on horseback under the arch at the Horse-Guards, with a crowd staring at him. You may laugh, but it's a very melancholy reflection; a man of birth and manners; the last of an old family; it is extremely vexatious to me." "And why should the folk stare at him?--is he such a paladin?" asked the old lady, with her merry laugh. "He is a handsome fellow," said the Colonel, "and carries himself like a gentleman--which is more than can be said of everybody," he added, with a vexed recollection of Horace; "however, these are all _my_ affairs. Is that a letter from Charlie? I certainly begin to forget the time for the mail." "You'll find it out by-and-bye, when Ned is gone," said Mrs. Melrose; "but look you here, Uncle Edward--here's a sight for you--do ye think that's like Charlie's hand?" The Colonel made haste to get his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on with a little nervousness. "Eh?--what?--it's a lady's hand," he cried, peering at the pink epistle, which the old lady held out to him triumphantly at arms length. "Who is it? Eh? What's this? Fanny--no--Annie Melrose? Who on earth is Annie Melrose? Do you mean to tell me the boy's married before he has been out a year?"