uch that he had to
desist. Indeed, I have heard my father say that he sometimes threatened
his life. A desperate character he was, and almost devoid of reverence.
No one, not even my father, had any influence--good influence, of course,
I mean--over him, except his mother, who was of my family; and also a
woman who lived with her--a sort of governess--aunt, he called her. The
way of it was this: Captain St. Leger had a younger brother, who made an
improvident marriage with a Scotch girl when they were both very young.
They had nothing to live on except what the reckless Lancer gave them,
for he had next to nothing himself, and she was "bare"--which is, I
understand, the indelicate Scottish way of expressing lack of fortune.
She was, however, I understand, of an old and somewhat good family,
though broken in fortune--to use an expression which, however, could
hardly be used precisely in regard to a family or a person who never had
fortune to be broken in! It was so far well that the MacKelpies--that
was the maiden name of Mrs. St. Leger--were reputable--so far as fighting
was concerned. It would have been too humiliating to have allied to our
family, even on the distaff side, a family both poor and of no account.
Fighting alone does not make a family, I think. Soldiers are not
everything, though they think they are. We have had in our family men
who fought; but I never heard of any of them who fought because they
_wanted_ to. Mrs. St. Leger had a sister; fortunately there were only
those two children in the family, or else they would all have had to be
supported by the money of my family.

Mr. St. Leger, who was only a subaltern, was killed at Maiwand; and his
wife was left a beggar. Fortunately, however, she died--her sister
spread a story that it was from the shock and grief--before the child
which she expected was born. This all happened when my cousin--or,
rather, my father's cousin, my first-cousin-once-removed, to be
accurate--was still a very small child. His mother then sent for Miss
MacKelpie, her brother-in-law's sister-in-law, to come and live with her,
which she did--beggars can't be choosers; and she helped to bring up
young St. Leger.

I remember once my father giving me a sovereign for making a witty remark
about her. I was quite a boy then, not more than thirteen; but our
family were always clever from the very beginning of life, and father was
telling me about the St. Leger family. My famil