restless unhappiness he had felt years ago when
he had first overheard the story of the wretched Lady of Wildairs and
her neglected children.

"Yes," he said, "'tis almost the same feeling, though then I was a
child, and now I am a man. When I saw the girl at the hunt, and rode
home afterwards with Dunstanwolde, listening to her story, there was
gloom in the air. There is that in it to make a man's spirit heavy. I
must not think of her."

But Fate herself was against him. For one thing, my Lord Marlborough
had brought back to him, with a few words, with strange vividness the
picture of the brilliant young figure in its hunting scarlet, its
gallop across the field with head held high, its flying leap over the
hedge, and the gay insolence and music of its laugh.

"A child could not have made a man so remember her," he said,
impatiently. "She was half woman then--half lovely, youthful devil.
There is an ill savour about it all."

When he entered his rooms he found guests waiting him. A
pleasure-loving young ensign, whom he had known at Oxford, and two of
the lad's cronies. They were a trio of young scapegraces, delighted
with any prospect of adventure, and regarding their martial duties
chiefly as opportunities to shine in laced coats and cocked hats, and
swagger with a warlike air and a military ogle when they passed a
pretty woman in the street. It was the pretty woman these young English
soldiers had come to do battle with, and hoped to take captive with
flying colours and flourish of trumpets.

They were in the midst of great laughter when Roxholm entered, and
young Tantillion, the ensign, sprang up to meet him in the midst of a
gay roar. The lad had been one of his worshippers at the University,
and loved him fondly, coming to him with all sorts of confidences, to
pour forth his love difficulties, to grumble at his military duties
when they interfered with his pleasures, to borrow money from him to
pay his gaming debts.

"He has been with my Lord Marlborough," he cried; "I know he has by his
sober countenance! We are ready to cheer thee up, Roxholm, with the
jolliest story. 'Tis of the new beauty, who is but twelve years old and
has set half the world talking."

"Mistress Clorinda Wildairs of Wildairs Hall in Gloucestershire," put
in Bob Langford, one of the cronies, a black-eyed lad of twenty.
"Perhaps your Lordship has heard of her, since she is so much gossiped
of--Mistress Clorinda Wildairs, who has been