was the cause of a week's coolness
between us. But it was not until Lieutenant Roper of the dragoons
appeared in the field that I felt any particular cause for uneasiness.

To give the devil his due, Roper was a handsome fellow. He stood upwards
of six feet in his boots, had a splendid head of curling black hair, and
a mustachio and whiskers to match. His nose was beautifully aquiline,
his eyes of the darkest hazel, and a perpetual smile, which the puppy
had cultivated from infancy, disclosed a box of brilliant dominoes. I
knew Roper well, for I had twice bailed him out of the police-office,
and, in return, he invited me to mess. Our obligations, therefore, to
each other might be considered as nearly equal--in fact, the balance, if
any, lay upon his side, as upon one occasion he had won from me rather
more than fifty pounds at ecarte. He was not a bad fellow either, though
a little slap-dash in his manner, and somewhat supercilious in his cups;
on which occasions--and they were not unfrequent--he was by far too
general in his denunciation of all classes of civilians. He was, I
believe, the younger son of a Staffordshire baronet, of good
connections, but no money--in fact, his patrimony was his commission,
and he was notoriously on the outlook for an heiress. Now, Edith Bogle
was rumoured to have twenty thousand pounds.

Judge then of my disgust, when, on my return from a rent-gathering
expedition to Argyllshire, I found Lieutenant Roper absolutely domiciled
with the Bogles. I could not call there of a forenoon on my way from the
Parliament-House, without finding the confounded dragoon seated on the
sofa beside Edith, gabbling away with infinite fluency about the last
ball, or the next review, or worsted-work, or some similar abomination.
I question whether he had ever read a single book since he was at
school, and yet there he sat, misquoting Byron to Edith--who was rather
of a romantic turn--at no allowance, and making wild work with passages
out of Tom Moore's Loves of the Angels. How the deuce he got hold of
them, I am unable up to this day to fathom. I suspect he had somehow or
other possessed himself of a copy of the "Beauties," and dedicated an
hour each morning to committing extracts to memory. Certainly he never
opened his mouth without enunciating some rubbish about bulbuls,
gazelles, and chibouques; he designated Edith his Phingari, and swore
roundly by the Koran and Kiebaubs. It was to me perfectly inconceiv