altercation with Madeline, the love he had once thought so ineffaceable,
had faded into a dim and sullen hue; and, in proportion as the image of
Madeline grew indistinct, that of her sister became more brilliant.
Often, now, as he rode slowly onward, in the quiet of the deepening
night, and the mellow stars softening all on which they shone, he pressed
the little token of Ellinor's affection to his heart, and wondered that
it was only within the last few days he had discovered that her eyes were
more beautiful than Madeline's, and her smile more touching. Meanwhile
the redoubted Corporal, who was by no means pleased with the change in
his master's plans, lingered behind, whistling the most melancholy tune
in his collection. No young lady, anticipative of balls or coronets, had
ever felt more complacent satisfaction in a journey to London than that
which had cheered the athletic breast of the veteran on finding himself,
at last, within one day's gentle march of the metropolis. And no young
lady, suddenly summoned back in the first flush of her debut, by an
unseasonable fit of gout or economy in papa, ever felt more irreparably
aggrieved than now did the dejected Corporal. His master had not yet even
acquainted him with the cause of the countermarch; and, in his own heart,
he believed it nothing but the wanton levity and unpardonable fickleness
"common to all them ere boys afore they have seen the world." He
certainly considered himself a singularly ill-used and injured man, and
drawing himself up to his full height, as if it were a matter with which
Heaven should be acquainted at the earliest possible opportunity, he
indulged, as we before said, in the melancholy consolation of a whistled
death-dirge, occasionally interrupted by a long-drawn interlude half
sigh, half snuffle of his favourite augh--baugh.

And here, we remember, that we have not as yet given to our reader a
fitting portrait of the Corporal on horseback. Perhaps no better
opportunity than the present may occur; and perhaps, also, Corporal