If, however, he could do any
thing for me during my absence, I had but to command him.
"While I was yet giving vent, in no very measured terms,
to the indignation I felt at being made the subject of
public censure by the colonel, the same sergeant came
into the room, announcing that the company were only
waiting for me to march, and that the colonel desired my
instant presence. In the agitation of my feelings, I
scarcely knew what I did, putting several portions of my
regimental equipment on so completely awry, that your
father noticed and rectified the errors I had committed;
while again, in the presence of the sergeant, I expressed
the deepest regret he could not relieve me from a duty
that was hateful to the last degree.
"Torn with agony at the thought of the uncertainty in
which I was compelled to leave her, whom I so fondly
adored, I had now no. other alternative than to make a
partial confidant of your father. I told him that in the
cottage which I pointed out he would find the original
of the portrait he had seen me painting on a former
occasion,--the Cornish cousin, whose beauty he professed
to hold so cheaply.
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