"P.S.1.--Remember me to our boy, or boys--which is it?

"P.S.2.--I bring with me the daughter of a friend in India, who is come
over for a year or two's polish at a first-rate school. Of course you
will be glad to receive her as our guest.

"J.G.J.T."

This loving letter was the most startling event that had ever attempted
to unnerve Mrs. Tracy; and she accordingly managed, for effect and
propriety's sake, to grow very faint upon the spot, whether for joy, or
sorrow, or fear of lost liberty, or hope of a restored lord, doth not
appear; she had so long been satisfied with receiving quarterly pay from
the India agents, that she forgot it was an evidence of her husband's
existence; and, lo! here he was returning a general, doubtlessly a
magnificent moustachioed individual, and she was to be Mrs. General! so
that when she came completely to herself, after that feint of a faint,
she was thinking of nothing but court-plumes, oriental pearls, and her
gallant Tracy's uniform.

The postscripts also had their influence: Charles, naturally
affectionate, and willing to love a hitherto unseen father, felt hurt,
as well he might, at the "boy, or boys;" while Julian, who ridiculed his
brother's sentimentality, was already fancying that the "daughter of a
friend" might be a pleasant addition to the dullness of
Burleigh-Singleton.

Preparations vast were made at once for the general's reception; from
attic to kitchen was sounded the tocsin of his coming. Julian was all
bustle and excitement, to his mother's joy and pride; while Charles
merited her wrath by too much of his habitual and paternal quietude,
particularly when he withdrew his forces altogether from the loud
domestic fray, by retreating up-stairs to cogitate and muse, perhaps to
make a calming prayer or two about all these matters of importance. As
for Mrs. Tracy herself, she was even now, within the first hour of that
news, busily engaged in collecting cosmetics, trinkets, blonde lace, and
other female finery, resolved to trick herself out like Jezebel, and win
her lord once more; whilst the pernicious old aunt, who still lived on,
notwithstanding all those twenty years of patience, as vivacious as
before, grumbled and scolded so much at this upsetting of her house,
that there was really some risk of her altering the will at last, and
cutting out Jane Tracy after all.

And the morrow morning came, as if it were n