he regimental
doctor a very unserviceable craft for his Majesty's service. The result
was, I was sent back with that plaster for a man's vanity, though not
for his wounds, a despatch-letter to the Horse Guards, and an official
account of the action. As nothing has occurred since in the Peninsula to
eclipse my performance, I continue to star it here with immense success,
and am quite convinced that with a little more loss I might have made an
excellent match out of the affair.

'Now to the pleasant part of my epistle. Your father found me out a few
evenings since at an evening party at the Duke of York's, and presented
me to your lady-mother, who was most gracious in her reception of me;
an invitation to dinner the next day followed, and since, I have spent
almost every day at your house. Your father, my dear Jack, is a glorious
fellow, a soldier in every great feature of the character; you never can
have a finer object of your imitation, and your best friend cannot wish
you to be more than his equal. Lady Charlotte is the most fascinating
person I ever met; her abilities are first-rate, and her powers of
pleasing exceed all that ever I fancied even of London fashionables. How
you could have left such a house I can scarcely conceive, knowing as I
do something of your taste for comfort and voluptuous ease. Besides, _la
cousine_, Lady Julia--Jack, Jack, what a close fellow you are I and
how very lovely she is! she certainly has not her equal even here. I
scarcely know her, for somehow she rather affects hauteur with my cloth,
and rarely deigns any notice of the red-coats so plentifully sprinkled
along your father's dinner-table. Her kindness to Corny, who has been
domesticated at your house for the last five weeks, I can never forget;
and even he can't, it would appear, conjure up any complaint against
her. What a testimony to her goodness!

'This life, however, cannot last for ever; and as I have now recovered
so far as to mount a horse once more, I have applied for a regimental
appointment. Your father most kindly interests himself for me, and
before the week is over I may be gazetted. That fellow De Vere was very
intimate here when I arrived; since he has seen me, however, his
visits have become gradually less frequent, and now have almost ceased
altogether. This, _entre nous_, does not seem to have met completely
with Lady Julia's approval, and I think she may have attributed to me a
circumstance in which certainly I