The aides-de-camp are about as much trouble to me as so many grown-up sons. That sedate Captain P. followed me to my room after breakfast, and thought it right to mention that he had proposed to Miss S. on Thursday, and had been accepted, and that the aunt was agreeable, and that he had written to the stepfather, Colonel ----, for his consent, which he had no reason to doubt, &c., and that he hoped I would not mention it to anybody but Lord A., as they were exceedingly desirous Captain L. E. should not know it, but Mrs. S. wished I should be told. If the kitchen poker or church steeple had gone and proposed, it would not have been more out of character, P. has always seemed so very indifferent and cold to ladies; though ever since we have been here, we have observed how altered he was, and what high spirits he was in; and then I met him the other day carrying a little nosegay to Stirling Castle, which looked suspicious and unnatural. Still the shock was great, and the only thing I could think of at first, was to ask with infinite and mistaken promptitude if she were a nice girl, to which P. naturally answered that of course she was--a very nice girl indeed; and I said I had had no opportunity of speaking to her when she dined here, but that now I should take pains to make her acquaintance. And then we discussed his prospects. He cannot marry for a year at soonest, even if Colonel ---- consents then; but she is only eighteen, and her father will not let the elder one marry till she is twenty. P. is going away next week on an official tour to Cashmere, a sort of scientific survey which G. wants him to make, and he is to be away four months. That business was settled, and after luncheon L. E. came, very unhappy in _his_ mind--_and_ thought I must have observed it. He had been on the point of proposing to Miss A. S., when he had been intercepted by the astute aunt, who said she could not but observe his attentions, and thought it as well to mention that A. was engaged. He said, so he had heard, but he did not believe it, and thereupon wrote to the aforesaid A., and brought me his letter and her answer, and his letter to the stepfather and the aunt's letter to him, and he thought that with my knowledge of the world, I could tell him whether it did not appear that she was only sticking to her engagement because she thought it right, &c.