is garments, being no doubt
well aware that no man after twenty-five can afford to call special
attention to his coat, his hat, his cravat, or his trousers; but
nevertheless the matter was one to which he paid much attention, and
he was by no means lax in ascertaining what his tailor did for him.
He always rode a pretty horse, and mounted his groom on one at any
rate as pretty. He was known to have an excellent stud down in the
shires, and had the reputation of going well with hounds. Poor Sir
Marmaduke could not have ridden a hunt to save either his government
or his credit. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared to her sister
that Colonel Osborne was a man whom she was entitled to regard with
semi-parental feelings of veneration because he was older than her
father, she made a comparison which was more true in the letter than
in the spirit. And when she asserted that Colonel Osborne had known
her since she was a baby, she fell again into the same mistake.
Colonel Osborne had indeed known her when she was a baby, and had in
old days been the very intimate friend of her father; but of herself
he had seen little or nothing since those baby days, till he had met
her just as she was about to become Mrs. Trevelyan; and though it was
natural that so old a friend should come to her and congratulate her
and renew his friendship, nevertheless it was not true that he made
his appearance in her husband's house in the guise of the useful old
family friend, who gives silver cups to the children and kisses the
little girls for the sake of the old affection which he has borne for
the parents. We all know the appearance of that old gentleman, how
pleasant and dear a fellow he is, how welcome is his face within the
gate, how free he makes with our wine, generally abusing it, how he
tells our eldest daughter to light his candle for him, how he gave
silver cups when the girls were born, and now bestows tea-services as
they get married,--a most useful, safe, and charming fellow, not a
year younger-looking or more nimble than ourselves, without whom life
would be very blank. We all know that man; but such a man was not
Colonel Osborne in the house of Mr. Trevelyan's young bride.

Emily Rowley, when she was brought home from the Mandarin Islands
to be the wife of Louis Trevelyan, was a very handsome young woman,
tall, with a bust rather full for her age, with dark eyes--eyes that
looked to be dark because her eye-brows and eye-lashes were