Thus passed the summer and autumn. I had arranged (by the payment of a small annual sum) to make my friend’s home my own. I confess to entertaining the hope, that Evelyn, surrounded by such uncongenial spirits, would remain unmarried at least four or five years, when, in my girlish ideas, I considered we should, or certainly I should, be very old, and sufficiently steady, having joined our incomes, to fly away together to sunny Italy. It was, however, otherwise ordained. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II. +COURTSHIP+ ONE morning at breakfast, on opening the letter-bag, Mrs. Dale announced to her husband that her nephew, Captain Travers, of the *** Lancers, had just returned from India, and proposed paying them a visit at Christmas. Had the Vicar been a devout Catholic, he would doubtless have crossed himself, as it was he gave a kind of holy groan, and rolled up his forehead, as he was wont to do when any very obstinate sinner was mentioned. The lady, however, pressed her point, and at length a reluctant consent was given, together with the expression of a despairing hope that the visit of this probable child of Satan might eventually “be blessed” to the saving of his soul. Mrs. Dale, whose piety was by no means so lively as that of her husband, was only too happy to have an occasion for arraying herself in some of the elegant new dresses she had surreptitiously procured at the nearest town. She therefore lost no time in answering the gallant captain by letter that they would be delighted to welcome him to Warenne Vicarage. I perceived that Evelyn was much preoccupied by her cousin’s projected visit; our life was so monotonous that any change was welcome, and a young and dashing officer of cavalry could not fail to be an acquisition to our very limited and somewhat dull clerical circle. Frequently I interrupted her day dreams, begging her not to imagine she was about to meet her “beau ideal”—the hero of her young imaginings—or she would surely be disappointed. With a bright blush she would reply, “You know, dear Mary, how high is my standard of perfection, and that I hope never to marry unless I meet one I can not only love, but respect and revere above all created beings. Yet,” she added with a sigh, “how in this isolated spot may I ever hope to meet with such a man? unless indeed,” smiling archly, “my gallant cousin prove to be my own true knight,” and springing lightly across the room to her harp, she would commence singing, in a rich contralto voice, Mrs. Norton’s exquisite ballad, “Love not, ye hapless sons of clay,” or perhaps one of Moores’ delicious national airs.—She was one of the few gifted individuals who have “tears in the voice,” so deep was the pathos, so intense the feeling, she threw into both words and melody; like Orpheus, she might have charmed even the rocks.