given to itinerant habits, and Harry being my natural _chaperon_
I have to protect myself as best I may."

By dinner hour our party is still further enlarged by Dora, Mark
Gore, and Sir George Ashurst, a very fair young man, with an
aquiline nose, plump face, and a long white moustache. He at once
impresses me with the belief that he is thoroughly good-natured,
and altogether incapable of ill temper of any kind. Perhaps,
indeed, if he were to smile a little less frequently, and show
some symptoms of having an opinion of his own, it would be an
improvement. But what will you? One cannot have everything. And
he is chatty and agreeable, and I manage to spend my evenings
very comfortably in his society.

The next day Captain Jenkins and Mr. Powell, from the Barracks at
Chillington, put in an appearance; and a very youthful gentleman,
with a calm and cherubic countenance, arrives from London. This
latter is in the Hussars, and is full of a modest
self-appreciation very much to be admired.

"Well, Chips, so you have come, in spite of all your
engagements," says Marmaduke, slapping this fair-haired warrior
affectionately upon the shoulder. (His correct name is John
Chippinghall Thornton; but his friends and brother officers
having elected to call him "Chip," he usually goes by that
appellation. Though _why_ I have never been able to fathom, as it
would be a too palpable flattery to regard this very erratic
young man as a "chip of the old block," his father being a
peculiarly mild and inoffensive clergyman, residing in a northern
village).

"What did Lady Emily say to your defection, and Maudie Green, and
Carrie, and all the rest of your friends?"

"Oh, I say, now," says Master Chips, with an ingenuous blush, "it
isn't fair to show me up in this light--is it?--and before Mrs.
Carrington, too. She will have no opinion of me if she listens to
all _you_ say."

"I am only anxious to hear how you tore yourself away from their

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