of old maids, old bachelors, and sensible persons;
but the darling of all nurseries, to whose little inhabitants he was
uniformly kind: were they the collectors' progeny in their palanquins,
or the sergeants' children tumbling about the cantonment, or the dusky
little heathens in the huts of his servants round his gate.

It is known that there is no part of the world where ladies are more
fascinating than in British India. Perhaps the warmth of the sun kindles
flames in the hearts of both sexes, which would probably beat quite
coolly in their native air: else why should Miss Brown be engaged ten
days after her landing at Calcutta? or why should Miss Smith have half a
dozen proposals before she has been a week at the station? And it is not
only bachelors on whom the young ladies confer their affections; they
will take widowers without any difficulty; and a man so generally liked
as Major Newcome, with such a good character, with a private fortune of
his own, so chivalrous, generous, good-looking, eligible in a word, you
may be sure would have found a wife easily enough, had he any mind for
replacing the late Mrs. Casey.

The Colonel, as has been stated, had an Indian chum or companion, with
whom he shared his lodgings; and from many jocular remarks of this
latter gentleman (who loved good jokes, and uttered not a few) I could
gather that the honest widower Colonel Newcome had been often tempted
to alter his condition, and that the Indian ladies had tried numberless
attacks upon his bereaved heart, and devised endless schemes of carrying
it by assault, treason, or other mode of capture. Mrs. Casey (his
defunct wife) had overcome it by sheer pity and helplessness. He had
found her so friendless, that he took her into the vacant place, and
installed her there as he would have received a traveller into his
bungalow. He divided his meal with her, and made her welcome to his
best. "I believe Tom Newcome married her," sly Mr. Binnie used to say,
"in order that he might have permission to pay her milliner's bills;"
and in this way he was amply gratified until the day of her death. A
feeble miniature of the lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, hung
over the mantelpiece of the Colonel's bedchamber, where I have often
seen that work of art; and subsequently, when he and Mr. Binnie took a
house, there was hung up in the spare bedroom a companion portrait to
the miniature--that of the Colonel's predecessor, Jack Casey, who in
l