But now, it seemed to his uncle and patron, the Colonel-Commandant of the Brigade, that his prospects were on the point of being marred by this unlucky passion for the daughter of the Countess van Renslaer. Kinloch's antipathy to women was well known in the Brigade, and it was a standing joke among the battalions, that once, when the coquettish wife of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam had lured him into a game of battledore and shuttlecock, and contrived to let the latter drop into her ample bosom, and pointing thereto, piteously besought the General to take it out, that he--obtuse as Uncle Toby with the Widow Wadman--deftly abstracted it with the tongs. 'The lad will succeed me in time, as Laird of Thominean,' he muttered, after a time; 'the forfeited baronetcy may be restored: so why shouldn't he marry because I--I--but better not! They are all alike--all alike, these women: so he will be safer with the left wing of Dundas's Battalion in the West Indies, than philandering here at the Hague.' But even while giving utterance to his thoughts, his features relaxed: his irritation or annoyance seemed to abate as other thoughts stole into his mind, and a shade of melancholy came over his face; and resting his head upon his hands, he remained for a time in deep and apparently painful thought. Then he rose slowly, and selecting a key from a small bunch, opened an elaborately-carved Dutch cabinet, and from a secret drawer thereof, curiously and ingeniously hidden by a movable lion's head, he drew forth the oval miniature of a young girl, and gazed upon it long, sorrowfully, and tenderly. There was something quaint and childlike in the beauty of the girl depicted there, with a string of pearls round her white and slender throat. Her complexion was clear and pure, her expression innocent, with golden-brown hair, and golden-brown eyes that seemed to smile on him again as he gazed on them. A hot tear started in the eyes of Kinloch, yet he bit his lip, and, as if angry with himself for the emotion that came over him, he closed the miniature-case with a sharp snap, and restored it to its place of concealment hurriedly, muttering: 'Fool that I was--fool that I am now! Heaven grant that this Dolores of Lewie's may not make the dupe of him that girl made of me! I must save him from himself. I shall write the Director-General of the Forces--Berbice or Essequibo it must be. Poor Lewie! I am loth to part with him; but, der Duyvel! he shall not be the victim of this old jade and her daughter.' CHAPTER III. SWORD-PLAY. Full of conflicting thoughts Lewie Baronald, with a slower pace than usual, proceeded towards the residence of the Countess van Renslaer, and quitting the Lang Vourhout, he crossed the canal that encircles the whole Hague.