for support. Her face was pale as usual; on each cheek there was a hectic flush, and her eyes were fastened on him. "My darling nurse!" cried Guy with the warm enthusiastic tone of a boy, and hurrying toward her he embraced her and kissed her. The poor old creature trembled and did not say a single word. "Now you didn't know I was coming, did you, you dear old thing?" said Guy. "But what is the matter? Why do you tremble so? Of course you're glad to see your boy. Are you not?" Mrs. Hart looked up to him with an expression of mute affection, deep, fervent, unspeakable; and then seizing his warm young hand in her own wan and tremulous ones, she pressed it to her thin white lips and covered it with kisses. "Oh, come now," said Guy, "you always break down this way when I come home; but you must not--you really must not. If you do I won't come home at all any more. I really won't. Come, cheer up. I don't want to make you cry when I come home." "But I'm crying for joy," said Mrs. Hart, in a faint voice. "Don't be angry." "You dear old thing! Angry?" exclaimed Guy, affectionately. "Angry with my darling old nurse? Have you lost your senses, old woman? But where is my father? Why has he sent for me? There's no bad news, I hear, so that I suppose all is right." "Yes, all is well," said Mrs. Hart, in a low voice. "I don't know why you were sent for, but there is nothing bad. I think your father sent for you to see an old friend of his." "An old friend?" "Yes. General Pomeroy," replied Mrs. Hart, in a constrained voice. "He has been here two or three days." "General Pomeroy! Is it possible?" said Guy. "Has he come to England? I didn't know that he had left India. I must hurry up. Good-by, old woman," he added, affectionately, and kissing her again he hurried up stairs to his father's room. Lord Chetwynde was there, and General Pomeroy also. The greeting between father and son was affectionate and tender, and after a few loving words Guy was introduced to the General. He shook him heartily by the hand. "I'm sure," said he, "the sight of you has done my father a world of good. He looks ten years younger than he did when I last saw him. You really ought to take up your abode here, or live somewhere near him. He mopes dreadfully, and needs nothing so much as the society of an old friend. You could rouse him from his blue fits and ennui, and give him new life." Guy then went on in a rattling way to narrate some events which had befallen him on the road. As he spoke in his animated and enthusiastic way General Pomeroy scanned him earnestly and narrowly. To the most casual observer Guy Molyneux must have been singularly prepossessing. Tall and slight, with a remarkably well-shaped head covered with dark curling hair, hazel eyes, and regular features, his whole appearance was eminently patrician, and bore the marks of high-breeding and refinement; but there was something more than this. Those eyes looked forth frankly and fearlessly; there was a joyous light in them which awakened sympathy; while the open expression of his face, and the clear and ringing accent of his fresh young voice, all tended to inspire confidence and trust. General Pomeroy noted all this with delight, for in his anxiety for his daughter's future he saw that Guy was one to whom he might safely intrust the dearest idol of his heart. "Come, Guy," said Lord Chetwynde at last, after his son had rattled on for half an hour or more, "if you are above all considerations of dinner, we are not. I have already had it put off two hours for you, and we should like to see some signs of preparation on your part." "All right, Sir. I shall be on hand by the time it is announced," said Guy, cheerily; "you don't generally have to complain of me in that particular, I think." So saying, Guy nodded gayly to them and left the room, and they presently heard him whistling through the passages gems from the last new opera. "A splendid fellow," said the General, as the door closed, in a tone of hearty admiration. "I see his father over again in him. I only hope he will come into our views." "I can answer for his being only too ready to do so," said Lord Chetwynde, confidently. "He exceeds the utmost hopes that I had formed of him," said the General. "I did not expect to see so frank and open a face, and such freshness of innocence and purity." Lord Chetwynde's face showed all the delight which a fond father feels at hearing the praises of an only son. Dinner came and passed. The General retired, and Lord Chetwynde then explained to his son the whole plan which had been made about him. It was a plan which was to affect his whole life most profoundly in its most tender part; but Guy was a thoughtless boy, and received the proposal like such. He showed nothing but delight. He never dreamed of objecting to any thing. He declared that it seemed to him too good to be true. His thoughts did not appear to dwell at all upon his own share in this transaction, though surely to him that share was of infinite importance, but only on the fact that Chetwynde was saved. "And is Chetwynde really to be ours, after all?" he cried, at the end of a burst of delight, repeating the words, boy-like, over and over again, as though he could never tire of hearing the words repeated. After all, one can not wonder at his thoughtlessness and enthusiasm. Around Chetwynde all the associations of his life were twined. Until he had joined the regiment he had known no other home; and beyond this, to this high-spirited youth, in whom pride of birth and name rose very high, there had been from his earliest childhood a bitter humiliation in the thought that the inheritance of his ancestors, which had never known any other than a Chetwynde for its master, must pass from him forever into alien hands. Hitherto his love for his father had compelled him to refrain from all expression of his feelings about this, for he well knew that, bitter as it would be for him to give up Chetwynde, to his father it would be still worse--it would be like rending his very heartstrings. Often had he feared that this sacrifice to honor on his father's part would be more than could be endured. He had, for his father's sake, put a restraint upon himself; but this concealment of his feelings had only increased the intensity of those feelings; the shadow had been gradually deepening over his whole life, throwing gloom over the sunlight of his joyous youth; and now, for the first time in many years, that shadow seemed to be dispelled. Surely there is no wonder that a mere boy should be reckless of the future in the sunshine of such a golden present. When General Pomeroy appeared again, Guy seized his hand in a burst of generous emotion, with his eyes glistening with tears of joy. "How can I ever thank you," he cried, impetuously, "for what you have done for us! As you have done by us, so will I do by your daughter--to my life's end--so help me God!" And all this time did it never suggest itself to the young man that there might be a reverse to the brilliant picture which his fancy was so busily sketching--that there was required from him something more than money or estate; something, indeed, in comparison with which even Chetwynde itself was as nothing? No. In his inexperience and thoughtlessness he would have looked with amazement upon any one who would have suggested that there might be a drawback to the happiness which he was portraying before his mind. Yet surely this thing came most severely upon him. He gave up the most, for he gave himself. To save Chetwynde, he was unconsciously selling his own soul. He was bartering his life. All his future depended upon this hasty act of a moment. The happiness of the mature man was risked by the thoughtless act of a boy. If in after-life this truth came home to him, it was only that he might see that the act was irrevocable, and that he must bear the consequences. But so it is in life. That evening, after the General had retired, Guy and his father sat up far into the night, discussing the future which lay before them. To each of them the future marriage seemed but a secondary event, an accident, an episode. The first thing, and almost the only thing, was the salvation of Chetwynde. Those day-dreams which they had cherished for so many years seemed now about to be realized, and Chetwynde would be restored to all its former glory. Now, for the first time, each let the other see, to the full, how grievous the loss would have been to him. It was not until after all the future of Chetwynde had been discussed, that the thoughts of Guy's engagement occurred to his father. "But, Guy," said he, "you are forgetting one thing. You must not in your joy lose sight of the important pledge which has been demanded of you. You have entered upon a very solemn obligation, which we both are inclined to treat rather lightly." "Of course I remember it, Sir; and I only wish it were something twenty times as hard that I could do for the dear old General," answered Guy, enthusiastically. "But, my boy, this may prove a severe sacrifice in the future," said Lord Chetwynde, thoughtfully. "What? To marry, father? Of course I shall marry some time; and as to the question of whom, why, so long as she is a lady (and General Pomeroy's daughter must be this), and is not a fright (I own I hate ugly women), I don't care who she is. But the daughter of such a man as that ought to be a little angel, and as beautiful as I could desire. I am all impatience to see her. By-the-way, how old is she?" "Ten years old." "Ten years!" echoed Guy, laughing boisterously. "I need not distress myself, then, about her personnel for a good many years at any rate. But, I say, father, isn't the General a little premature in getting his daughter settled? Talk of match-making mothers after this!" The young man's flippant tone jarred upon his father.
