those boundless pastures and plains on which man shall never look! What
herds, by thousands and millions, of those mighty creatures whose
skeletons we discover, from time to time, in the wreck of the
antediluvian globe! What secrets of form and power, of capacity and
enjoyment, may exist under the cover of that mighty expanse of waves
which fills the bed of the ocean, and spreads round the globe!

While those and similar ramblings were passing through my mind, as I sat
gazing on the bright and beautiful expanse before me, I was aroused by a
step on the shingle. I turned, and saw the gallant guardsman, who had so
much interested our party on the night before. But he received my
salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour;
and I waited for the _dénouement_, at his pleasure. He produced a small
billet from his pocket, which I opened, and which, on glancing my eye
over it, appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it,
and indulge me with an explanation. He read it, and smiled.

"It is, I own, not perfectly intelligible," said he; "but some allowance
must be made for a man deeply injured, and inflamed by a sense of
wrong."

I read the signature--Lafontaine, _Capitaine des Chasseurs legers_. I
had never heard the name before. I begged to know "the nature of his
business with me, as it was altogether beyond my conjecture."

"It is perfectly probable, sir," was the reply; "for I understand that
you had never seen each other till last night, at the house of your
friend. The case is simply this:--Lafontaine, who is one of the finest
fellows breathing, has been for some time deeply smitten by the various
charms of your host's very pretty daughter, and, so far as I comprehend,