with me.

I arrived at Captain Brentwood's about three o'clock in the afternoon.
I flatter myself that I made a very successful approach, and created
rather a sensation among the fourteen or fifteen people who were
sitting in the verandah. They took me for a distinguished stranger. But
when they saw who it was they all began calling out to me at once to
know how I was, and to come in (as if I wasn't coming in), and when at
last I got among them, I nearly had my hand shaken off; and the Doctor,
putting on his spectacles and looking at me for a minute, asked what I
had given for my hat?

Let me see, who was there that day? There was Mary Hawker, looking
rather older, and a little worn; and there was her son Charles sitting
beside pretty Ellen Mayford, and carrying on a terrible flirtation with
that young lady, in spite of her fat jolly-looking mother, who sat with
folded hands beside her. Next to her sat her handsome brother Cecil,
looking, poor lad! as miserable as he well could look, although I did
not know the cause. Then came Sam, beside his mother, whose noble happy
face was still worth riding fifty miles to see; and then, standing
beside her chair, was Alice Brentwood.

I had never seen this exquisite creature before, and I immediately fell
desperately and hopelessly in love with her, and told her so that same
evening, in the presence of Sam. Finding that my affection was not
likely to be returned, I enrolled myself as one of her knights, and
remain so to this present time.

The Major sat beside his wife, and the Doctor and Captain Brentwood
walked up and down, talking politics. There were also present, certain
Hawbucks, leggy youths with brown faces and limp hair, in appearance
and dress not unlike English steeplechaseriders who had been treated,
on the face and hands, with walnut-juice. They never spoke, and the
number of them then present I am uncertain about, but one of them I
recollect could spit a great deal farther than any of his brothers, and
proved it beyond controversy about twice in every three minutes.

I missed my old friend Jim Brentwood, and was informed that he had gone
to Sydney, "on the spree," as Sam expressed it, along with a certain
Lieutenant Halbert, who was staying on a visit with Major Buckley.

First I sat down by Mary Hawker, and had a long talk with her about old
times. She was in one of her gay moods, and laughed and joked
continuously. Then I moved up, by invitation, to a chair