Under the Red Dragon

and more helplessly bewitched than ever, perhaps. Ah, never will she learn to love me as I love her!" thought I, as I turned over m

other cigar, and rouse yourself. What the deuce is in this letter, th

bill returned, or wh

is simply an invitation from Sir Mad

here Caradoc, Gwynne, two other subalterns, and I, with some two hundred rank and file, expected ere long the fiat of the fates who reign at the Horse Guards to send us forth to win our laurels from the Russians, or, what seemed more probable, a grave where the pest was then decimating our hapless army, in the beautiful but perilous va

nces--the barrack furniture, a camp-bed, my baggage trunks piled in one corner, swords and a gun-case in another, books, empty bottles, cigar-boxes, and a few pairs of boots ostentatiously displayed in a row by Evans, making up its entire garniture, and by very contrast in its meagreness compelling me to smile sadly at myself for the ambitious

t every manly sport, was moreover a finished gentleman and thorough good fellow. Less fashionable in appearance and less dashing in manner, though by no means less soldier-like, Gwynne was his senior by some ten years. He was more grave and thoughtful, for he had seen more of the service and more of the world. Already a gray hair or so had begun to mingle with the blackness of his heavy moustache, and the lines of thought were traceable on his forehead an

oc's place in Nor

of ours who don't. Half the regiment have b

lks are coming. Winny has arranged that we shall have a regimental band--the Yeomanry one too, probably; then we are to have a Welsh harper, of course, and an itinerant Merlin in the grotto, to tell every one's fo

the writer was a friend of us all, I read on coolly, and

everybody, and he seems uncommonly attentive--so much so, that I wonder her mother permits it; but he seems to have some special power or influence over the old lady, though his name is not as yet, or ever likely to be, chronicled by Burke or Debrett. In lieu of the goat which your regiment lost in Barbadoes, Winifred has a beautiful pet one, a magnificent animal, which she means to present to the Welsh

th him once or twice in the hunting-field--on a borrowed mount, of course," added poor Charley;

adoc, who, I suppose, had been attentively observing me. As h

bout leave, perha

-is one of the finest in North Wales; his daughters are indeed charm

is--what is his name?--Gu

s eldest daughter has, I have heard, in her own right, no end of coal-mines somewhere, a

as he lit a fresh cigar; "sh

nducement than even t

! La

g with positive annoyance at the hearty laugh my admission elicited; "Miss Lloyd and I are old friends too, and know each other a deuced deal too well to tempt

ad a special charge of the

ills are over, I shall tr

el of the dep?t battalion--one who kept a pretty tight han

of yours with you, and Gwynne, too, if you can. Winny has mastered t

who presides over us in the orderly-room is p

, half sadly. "Tell him that the Fates have made

k! to rear the

young idea ho

ythe position, and drill them to fire withou

llow, and being above insteps and all that sort of thing, I think the slowest game known), and from cliquot

er is impossible. Even the stale dodge of 'urgent private affairs' won't serve me. Such droll ideas of t

ry my luck

ill be glorious in this hot month. I did all the dear old Principality last year--went over every foot of

Snowdonia with such a

get out of it will be yachting at Cowes, shooting in Scotland, fishing in Norway, backing the red at Baden-Baden, climbing the Matterhorn, or, it may be, the Peter Botte; killing buffaloes in America, or voyaging up the Nile in canoes. Rotten-row will

e comes for th

to the brandy bottle. "At present I have other work in hand than flirting with countesses, or visiting heiresses. But I envy you both, and heartily wish you all pleasure," he added, as

to support, he was fain to slave as a musketry instructor, the five shillings extra daily being a great pecuniary object to him. He was very modest wit