imself possessed of an uncommon portion of personal courage;
that attribute, of all others, of which everybody desires to be thought
possessed.

The day at Woodville Castle ended as usual in such mansions. The
hospitality stopped within the limits of good order; music, in which the
young lord was a proficient, succeeded to the circulation of the bottle;
cards and billiards, for those who preferred such amusements, were in
readiness: but the exercise of the morning required early hours, and not
long after eleven o'clock the guests began to retire to their several
apartments.

The young lord himself conducted his friend, General Browne, to the
chamber destined for him, which answered the description he had given of
it, being comfortable, but old-fashioned. The bed was of the massive form
used in the end of the seventeenth century, and the curtains of faded
silk, heavily trimmed with tarnished gold. But then the sheets, pillows,
and blankets looked delightful to the campaigner, when he thought of his
"mansion, the cask."

There was an air of gloom in the tapestry hangings, which, with their
worn-out graces, curtained the walls of the little chamber, and gently
undulated as the autumnal breeze found its way through the ancient
lattice-window, which pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance.
The toilet, too, with its mirror, turbaned, after the manner of the
beginning of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-colored silk, and its
hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements which had been
obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and in so far a
melancholy aspect.

But nothing could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large
wax candles; or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming, bickering
fagots in the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth
through the snug apartment; which, notwithstanding the general antiquity
of its appearance, was not wanting in the least convenience that modern
habits rendered either necessary or desirable.

"This is an old-fashioned sleeping apartment, general," said the young
lord; "but I hope you find nothing that makes you envy your old
tobacco-cask."

"I am not particular respecting my lodgings," replied the general; "yet
were I to make any choice, I would prefer this chamber by many degrees to
the gayer and more modern rooms of your family mansion. Believe me, that
when I unite its modern air of comfort with its venerable ant