se illustrations, in which battles, murders, and
sudden deaths are mingled, will prove that I regard the subject as by no
means trivial, but am sincerely anxious to warn my comrades against
yielding to a temptation which assails us daily.

On these principles the Cool Captain acted, then. His gay laugh opened a
bridge to the retreating enemy as he said, "How my poor character must
have been worried last night! I wish Mrs. Molyneux had been there. She
is good enough to stand up for her old friend sometimes. I could hardly
expect _you_ to take so much trouble for a very recent acquaintance."

"Of course not," replied Cecil. "I was not in a position to contradict
any thing, even if I had wished to do so. But, I remember, I thought I
would speak to you about my brother. You know enough of him already to
guess why I am nervous about him. I almost forced him to take me abroad;
and he is exposed to so many more dangers here than at home. Please,
don't encourage him to play, or tempt him into any thing wrong. Indeed,
I don't mean to speak harshly or uncourteously, so you need not be
angry."

She raised her eyes to her companion's with a pretty pleading. He met
them fairly. Whatever his intentions might be, no one could say that the
major ever shrank from looking friend or foe in the face.

"I am sorry that you should think the warning necessary. Supposing that
it were so--on my honor, he is safe from me. I should like to alter your
opinion of me, if it were possible. Will you give me a chance?" The
others joined them before she could reply; but more than once that day
Cecil wondered whether, even during their short acquaintance, she had
not sometimes dealt scanty justice to Royston Keene.

CHAPTER X.

There is a pleasant theory--that every woman may be loved, once at least
in her life, if she so wills it. It must be true: how, otherwise, can
you account for the number of hard-featured visages--lighted up by no
redeeming ray of intellect--that preside at "good men's feasts," and
confront them at their firesides? How do the husbands manage? Do they,
from constantly contemplating an inferior type of creation, lose their
comparing and discriminating powers, so that, like the Australian and
Pacific aborigines, they come to regard as points of beauty
peculiarities that a more advanced civilization shrinks from? Or do
their visual organs actually become impaired, like those of captives who
can see clearly only in their o