ng to the society in which he had lived at
Waverley-Honour) of a nature rather unfavourable to the existing
government and dynasty. He entered, therefore, without hesitation into
the resentful feeling of the relations who had the best title to dictate
his conduct, and not perhaps the less willingly when he remembered the
tedium of his quarters, and the inferior figure which he had made among
the officers of his regiment. If he could have had any doubt upon the
subject it would have been decided by the following letter from his
commanding officer, which, as it is very short, shall be inserted
verbatim:--

SIR,--

Having carried somewhat beyond the line of my duty an indulgence which
even the lights of nature, and much more those of Christianity, direct
towards errors which may arise from youth and inexperience, and that
altogether without effect, I am reluctantly compelled, at the present
crisis, to use the only remaining remedy which is in my power. You are,
therefore, hereby commanded to repair to ----, the headquarters of the
regiment, within three days after the date of this letter. If you shall
fail to do so, I must report you to the War Office as absent without
leave, and also take other steps, which will be disagreeable to you as
well as to,

Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

J. GARDINER, Lieut.-Col.

Commanding the----Regt. Dragoons.

Edward's blood boiled within him as he read this letter. He had been
accustomed from his very infancy to possess in a great measure the
disposal of his own time, and thus acquired habits which rendered the
rules of military discipline as unpleasing to him in this as they were in
some other respects. An idea that in his own case they would not be
enforced in a very rigid manner had also obtained full possession of his
mind, and had hitherto been sanctioned by the indulgent conduct of his
lieutenant-colonel. Neither had anything occurred, to his knowledge, that
should have induced his commanding officer, without any other warning
than the hints we noticed at the end of the fourteenth chapter, so
suddenly to assume a harsh and, as Edward deemed it, so insolent a tone
of dictatorial authority. Connecting it with the letters he had just
received from his family, he could not but suppose that it was designed
to make him feel, in his present situation, the same pressure of
authority which had been exercised in his father's case, and that the
whole was a concerted scheme to depress an