“Uneasiness about what?  The place is health itself:  all sorts of fevers, and agues, and those things being quite unknown.  Mamma says the toothache, even, cannot be found in this healthful spot.”

“That is lucky—­and, yet, I wish captain Willoughby—­Sir Hugh Willoughby could be induced to live more in New York.  Girls of your time of life, ought to be in the way of seeing the world, too.”

“In other words, of seeing admirers, major Bob,” said Maud, laughing, and bending forward to steal a glance in her brother’s face.  “Good night. Sir Hugh wishes us to send you into his library when we can spare you, and my lady has sent us a hint that it is ten o’clock, at which hour it is usual for sober people to retire.”

The major kissed both sisters with warm affection—­Beulah fancied with a sobered tenderness, and Maud thought kindly—­and then they retired to join their mother, while he went to seek his father.

The captain was smoking in the library, as a room of all-head- work was called, in company with the chaplain.  The practice of using tobacco in this form, had grown to be so strong in both of these old inmates of garrisons, that they usually passed an hour, in the recreation, before they went to bed.  Nor shall we mislead the reader with any notions of fine-flavoured Havana segars; pipes, with Virginia cut, being the materials employed in the indulgence.  A little excellent Cogniac and water, in which however the spring was not as much neglected, as in the orgies related in the previous chapter, moistened their lips, from time to time, giving a certain zest and comfort to their enjoyments.  Just as the door opened to admit the major, he was the subject of discourse, the proud parent and the partial friend finding almost an equal gratification in discussing his fine, manly appearance, good qualities, and future hopes.  His presence was untimely, then, in one sense; though he was welcome, and, indeed, expected.  The captain pushed a chair to his son, and invited him to take a seat near the table, which held a spare pipe or two, a box of tobacco, a decanter of excellent brandy, a pitcher of pure water, all pleasant companions to the elderly gentlemen, then in possession.

“I suppose you are too much of a maccaroni, Bob, to smoke,” observed the smiling father.  “I detested a pipe at your time of life; or may say, I was afraid of it; the only smoke that was in fashion among our scarlet coats being the smoke of gunpowder.  Well, how comes on Gage, and your neighbours the Yankees?”

“Why, sir,” answered the major, looking behind him, to make sure that the door was shut—­“Why, sir, to own the truth, my visit, here, just at this moment, is connected with the present state of that quarrel.”

Both the captain and the chaplain drew the pipes from their mouths, holding them suspended in surprise and attention.

“The deuce it is!” exclaimed the former.  “I thought I owed this unexpected pleasure to your affectionate desire to let me know I had inherited the empty honours of a baronetcy!”