THE COLONEL'S STORY. 149 



CHAPTER XX. 



" IT is thirty-five years this very month since I was 



quartered with my regiment in ford ; I recollect 



the time particularly, for I got my Company in the 

 thirty-seventh on the same day that I received an invi- 

 tation from a Mr. Morden, with whom I had formed 

 a mail-coach acquaintance, to spend a week with him, 

 and join his nephew in partridge-shooting. This gentle- 

 man's house was fourteen miles distant from the town, 

 and situated in a very retired part of the country. It 

 was a wild but beautiful residence, placed upon the 

 extremity of a peninsula, which jutted into an extensive 

 lake. To a sportsman it offered all the inducements 

 that shooting and fishing could afford. But it had 

 others besides these ; no man lived better than Mr. 

 Morden and his daughter Emily, and an orphan 

 cousin, who resided with her, were decidedly the finest 

 women who had attended the last race-ball. No wonder 

 then that I accepted the old gentleman's invitation 

 willingly, and on the appointed day put myself into 

 a post-chaise, and reached the place in time for dinner. 

 " The house was one of those old-fashioned, com- 

 fortable, Irish lodges, which are now extinct, or only 

 to be seen in ruins. It was a long, low building, covered 

 with an infinity of thatch, which bade defiance to rain, 

 cold, and storm. The tall and narrow casements 

 reached the ground, a handsome flower-knot extended 

 in their front, bounded by a holly hedge, and woodbine 

 and other creepers festooned the windows with their leaves 

 and berries. At some distance a well-stocked haggard 

 peeped over a spacious range of offices ; the lawn was 



