'Well, now that the ladies are amongst the departed,' said Dr. T., 'I can finish the sketch my brother has given us of Colonel B.'s sayings and doings relative to Miss B. and the present of the leathers. Mrs. B., though she enjoyed the joke as much as any of the conspirators, took compassion on the wounded sensibilities of the lady, made her pass the night at the house, and kept her there as a guest for some days; in short, she did all she could to soothe and console. She would not allow anyone who called to be admitted, and when, after a day or two of seclusion, the Colonel met Miss B. in the drawing-room, he spoke to her just as if nothing had occurred to ruffle her feelings; he was ever kind and courteous to everyone, and unwilling to give pain. He would not, therefore, have made any allusion to what had recently occurred, but Miss B. felt her wrongs were too great to be passed over in silence, and her sorrows were too weighty to be repressed. With a flood of tears she referred to the outrage, the indignity, the insult that had been offered to her; it was cruel, it was unmanly it was cowardly, it was disgraceful. By-and-by she ran herself out, and began to speak of less poignant afflictions. It was not enough that she should be disappointed in receiving the dress she had been so long expecting, but she must, in addition, be subject to such vile treatment. (Sob after sob.) "Why don't you say something to soothe her distress, Dick?" said Mrs. B., "you can comfort so well if you will." "Can I?" said the Colonel. "_C'est bien_, madame." Then turning to Miss B., he said, "Indeed I sympathize with you deeply. Such a wicked present as you received would naturally cause much disappointment. Empty compliments always do cause disappointment; and then to have to appear before your friends without your dress must have given you deep mortification, although it is said that 'beauty unadorned is then adorned the most.'" "Dick, Dick," interposed Mrs. B., "how can you go on so?" "How could Miss B. go on so, did you say? Well, how she could is difficult to understand." "Oh, stop, will you," said Mrs. B., "you're a horrid fellow; you won't even listen to all Miss B.'s troubles and distresses." "What, anything more," asked the Colonel, "beside the costume of the Buffs, or the want of costume, that vexed her so much?" "Hold that mischievous tongue of yours and listen. Miss B. will be obliged when she leaves our roof to go and live in the Fort, because her nephew, Mr. H., has been ordered to reside there for the present." "And if it be so," replied Colonel B., "I don't see any serious hardship or misfortune in it." "No; but Miss B. regrets that she will be three miles from her friends; and there within the walls of the Fort she will have nothing to amuse her, nothing except the goats and kids, sheep and rams, and lambs, and the bare walls to look at." "Ah, now," said the Colonel, "I admit she is to be pitied; to have nothing to amuse her, nothing even