sist in softening his heart. However, as I said
before, don't despair, but keep up your spirits, and you will soon be
too busy in your professional duties to allow your thoughts time to
dwell on the subject."

Harry again thanked him, and promised to follow his advice.

They reached Morbury. Harry proposed putting up their horses, and
begged the general to take a few turns on the esplanade, as he had
business which would occupy him some little time.

Harry was absent longer than he expected, and the general, after looking
at his watch two or three times, began to wonder what he could be about.

"Can the fair lady have come to the place," he thought. "Perhaps the
young fellow has been making a cat's-paw of me all the time, and has
gone to church and got married, ha! ha! ha! that would be a joke; but
by-the-bye it's out of canonical hours; he cannot have done that then."

He took another turn or two, exchanged a few words with the boatmen on
the beach, looked about in the hopes of meeting an acquaintance, and
resumed his seat on a bench facing the sea.

At last Harry made his appearance.

"What have you been about?" exclaimed the general. "I began to fear
that you had given me the slip altogether, and that I should hear of you
next at Gretna Green, or find that you had had a licence in your pocket
all the time, and had been laughing in your sleeve while I was bestowing
my sage advice on you."

"No, indeed," answered Harry, who did not like the general's joke. "To
confess the truth, I have been making my will. I thought it was a
matter which would occupy five or ten minutes at the utmost, but found
that there were all sorts of complications, of which I had not dreamed."

"Make your will, my dear boy! What could induce you to do that?"
exclaimed the general.

"When a man is going to run the risk of being shot or drowned, or cut
down by fever, or finished in some other way, he naturally wishes to
make such arrangements that his property may benefit those in whom he is
most interested. I should have asked you to be a witness, but the
lawyer found those who would answer as well, and I therefore did not
think it necessary to trouble you."

"Well, we will talk about it as we ride homewards," observed the
general. "It is time that we should be in the saddle, or we may be late
for dinner."

The general, as they rode along, pumped Harry, curious to know how he
had disposed of his property. He suspected from