officers gathered round him.
"Mind, you fellows must catch the seven o'clock train, or else you will be too late. There will be eight miles to drive; I will have a trap there to meet you, and you won't be there long before the others begin to arrive. We are not fashionable in our part of the county. We shall have enough partners for you to begin to dance by half-past nine, and I can promise you as pretty partners as you can find in any ball-room in England. When you have been quartered here a bit longer you will be ready to admit the truth of the general opinion, that, in point of pretty women, Devonshire can hold its own against any county in England. No, there is no fear whatever of your coming in too great strength. Of course, in Plymouth here, one can overdo the thing, but when one gets beyond the beat of the garrison, men are at a premium. I saw my mother's list; if it had not been for the regiment the female element would have predominated terribly. The army and navy, India and the colonies, to say nothing of all-devouring London, are the scourges of the country; the younger sons take wings to themselves and fly, and the spinsters are left lamenting."
"I think there is more push and go among younger sons than there is in the elders," one of the young officers said.
"They have not got the same responsibilities," Ronald laughed. "It is easy to see you are a younger son, Charley; there's a jaunty air about your forage cap and a swagger in your walk, that would tell any observant person that you are free from all responsibilities, and could, as the Latin grammar says, sing before a robber."
There was a general laugh, for Charley Mansfield was notoriously in a general state of impecuniosity. He, himself, joined merrily in the laugh.
"I can certainly say," he replied, "'He who steals my purse steals trash;' but I don't think he would get even that without a tussle. Still, what I said is true, I think. I know my elder brother is a fearfully stately personage, who, on the strength of two years' difference of age, and his heirship, takes upon himself periodically to inflict ponderous words of wisdom upon me. I think a lot of them are like that; but after all, as I tell him, it's the younger sons who have made England what it is. We won her battles and furnished her colonies, and have done pretty nearly everything that has been done; while the elder sons have only turned into respectable landowners and prosy magistrates."
"Very well, Charley, the sentiments do you honour," another laughed; "but there, the assembly is sounding. Waiter, bring me a glass of sherry; your sentiments have so impressed me, Charley, that I intend to drink solemnly to the success of second sons."
"You are not on duty, are you, Mervyn?"
"No, I am starting in half an hour to get home. I shall be wanted to aid in the final preparations. Well, I shall see you all to morrow night. Don't forget the seven o'clock train. I expect we shall keep it up till between three and four. Then you can smoke a cigar, and at five the carriages will be ready to take you to the station to catch the first train back, and you will be here in time for a tub and a change before early parade."
The ball at the Mervyns' was a brilliant one. The house was large, and as Mr. Mervyn had died four years before, and Ronald had since that time been absent on foreign service, it was a long time since an entertainment on a large scale had been given there to the county. A little to the disappointment of many of the young ladies in the neighbourhood, the military and naval officers did not come in uniform. There were two or three girls staying in the house, and one of them in the course of the evening, when she was dancing with Ronald, said:
"We all consider you have taken us in, Captain Mervyn. We made sure that you would all be in uniform. Of course those who live near Plymouth are accustomed to it, but in these parts the red coats are rather a novelty, and we feel we have been defrauded."
"We never go to balls, Miss Blackmoor, in uniform, except when they are regular naval or military balls, either given by our own regiment or some of the regiments in garrison, or by the navy. That is generally the rule though perhaps in some regiments it is not so strictly adhered to as with us."
"Then I consider that it is a fraud upon the public, Captain Mervyn. Gentlemen's dress is so dingy and monotonous that I consider it distinctly the duty of soldiers to give us a little light and colour when they get the chance."
"Very well, Miss Blackmoor, I will bear it in mind; and next time my mother gives a ball, the regiment, if it is within reach, shall come in uniform. By the way, do you know who is the man my cousin is dancing with? There are lots of faces I don't know here; being seven or eight years away makes a difference in a quiet country place."
"That is Mr. Gulston; he is first-lieutenant of the flagship at Plymouth. I know it because he was introduced to me early in the evening, and we danced together, and a capital dancer he is, too."
"He is an uncommonly good-looking fellow," Ronald said.
Margaret Carne seemed to think so, too, as she danced with him two or three times in the course of the evening, and went down to supper on his arm.
Ronald having, as the son of the house, to divide his attentions as much as possible, did not dance with his cousin. Lieutenant Gulston had been accompanied by the third-lieutenant, and by the doctor, who never missed an opportunity of going to a ball because, as he said, it gave him an opportunity of studying character.
"You see," he would argue, "on board a ship one gets only the one side of human nature. Sailors may differ a bit one from another, but they can all be divided into two or three classes – the steady honest fellow who tries to do his work well; the reckless fellow who is ready to do his work, but is up to every sort of mischief and devilment; and the lazy, loafing fellow who neglects his duty whenever he possibly can, and is always shamming sick in order to get off it. Some day or other I shall settle on shore and practise there, and I want to learn something about the people I shall have to deal with; besides, there's nothing more amusing than looking on at a ball when you have no idea of dancing yourself. It's astonishing what a lot of human nature you see if you do but keep your wits about you."
In the course of the evening he came up to the first-lieutenant.
"Who is that man you have just been talking to, Gulston? I have been watching him for some time. He has not been dancing, but has been standing in corners looking on."
"He is Mr. Carne, doctor; a cousin, or rather a nephew, of our hostess."
"Is he the brother of that pretty girl you have been dancing with?"
The lieutenant nodded.
"Then I am sorry for her," the surgeon said, bluntly.
"Sorry! What for?"
The surgeon answered by another question.
"Do you know anything about the family, Gulston?"
"I have heard something about them. Why?"
"Never mind now," the surgeon said. "I will tell you in the morning; it's hardly a question to discuss here," and he turned away before the lieutenant could ask further.
It was four o'clock before the dancing ceased and the last carriage rolled away. Then the military and naval men, and two or three visitors from Plymouth, gathered in the library, and smoked and talked for an hour, and were then conveyed to the station to catch the early train. The next day, as they were walking up and down the quarter-deck, the first-lieutenant said: "By the way, doctor, what was it you were going to say last night about the Carnes? You said you were sorry for Miss Carne, and asked me if I knew anything about the history of the family."
"Yes, that was it, Gulston; it wasn't the sort of thing to talk about there, especially as I understand the Mervyns are connections of the Carnes. The question I was going to ask you was this:
