again on furlough in five years at furthest, even if the aunt held out
so long; and this availed to keep his wife in the rear-guard; therefore,
Mrs. Tracy wiped her eyes, bade adieu to her retreating lord in Plymouth
Sound, and determined to abide, with other expectant dames and Asiatic
invalided heroes, at Burleigh-Singleton, until she might go to him, or
he return to her: for pleasant little Burleigh, besides its contiguity
to arriving Indiamen, was advantageous as being the dwelling-place of
aforesaid Mrs. Green;--that wealthy, widowed aunt, devoutly wished in
heaven: and the considerate old soul had offered her designing niece a
home with her till Tracy could come back.

During the first year of absence, ship-letters and India-letters arrived
duteously in consecutive succession: but somehow or other, the regular
post, in no long time afterwards, became unfaithful to its trust; and if
Mrs. Jane heard quarterly, which at any rate she did through the agent,
when he remitted her allowance, she consoled herself as to the captain's
well-being: in due course of things, even this became irregular; he was
far up the country, hunting, fighting, surveying, and what not; and no
wonder that letters, if written at all, which I rather doubt, got lost.
Then there came a long period of positive and protracted silence--months
of it--years of it; barring that her checks for cash were honoured still
at Hancock's, though they could tell her nothing of her lord; so that
Mrs. Tracy was at length seriously recommended by her friends to become
a widow; she tried on the cap, and looked into many mirrors; but, after
long inspection, decided upon still remaining a wife, because the weeds
were so clearly unbecoming. Habit, meanwhile, and that still-existing
old aunt, who seemed resolved to live to a hundred, kept her as before
at Burleigh: and, seeing that a few months after the captain's departure
she had presented the world, not to say her truant lord, with twins, she
had always found something to do in the way of, what she considered,