"Golden plover and teal, too, are appearing here now, and flocks of white Norwegian pigeons in Scotland; all indications that we shall have an unusually severe winter; so God help you poor fellows under canvas in the Crimea! In common with all the girls in England, Winny and Dora are busy making mufflings, knitted vests and cuffs, and so forth for the troops; and I have despatched some special hampers of good things, made up and packed by Owen Gwyllim and Gwenny Davis, the housekeeper, for our own lads of the 23rd to make merry with at Christmas, or on St. David's day."
(The warm wrappers arrived for us in summer, and as for the "special hampers," they were never heard of at all.)
And so, with many warm wishes, almost prayers, for my preservation from danger, and offers of money if I required it, the letter of my kind old friend ended; but it gave me food for much thought, and far into the hours of the chill night I sat and pondered over it. Why did Winny refuse so excellent an offer as that of Sir Watkins, whom I knew to be a wealthy and good-looking young baronet? I scarcely dared to ask myself, and so, as before, dismissed _that_ subject. Why had not Estelle's answers reached me, if she had actually written then? That Lady Naseby had surreptitiously intercepted our correspondence, I could not believe, though she might forbid it. Was my Lord Pottersleigh, now Earl of Aberconway, at work; or had they, like many others, perished at sea? Heaven alone new. His flatteries "pleased her," his, the senile dotard! And he had taken up his residence at Walcot Park; his earldom, too! I was full of sadness, mortification, and bitter thoughts; thoughts too deep and fierce for utterance or description. Could it be that the earldom and wealth on one hand were proving too strong for love, with the stringent tenor of her father's will on the other?
At the opera and theatre I had seen Estelle's beautiful eyes fill with tears, as she sympathised with the maudlin love and mimic sorrow, the wrongs or mishaps, of some well-rouged gipsy in rags, some peasant in a steeple-crowned hat and red bandages, some half-naked fisherman, like Masaniello, and her bosom would heave with emotion and enthusiasm; and yet with all this natural commiseration and fellow-feeling, she, who could almost weep with the hero or heroine of the melodrama, while their situation was enhanced by the effects of the orchestra, the lime-light, and the stage-carpenter, was perhaps casting me from her heart and her memory, as coolly as if I were an old ball-dress! So I strove yet awhile to think and to hope that her letters were with the lost mails at the bottom of the Ægean or the Black Sea; but Sir Madoc's letter occasioned me grave and painful doubts; and memory went sadly back to many a little but well-remembered episode of tenderness, a word, a glance, a stolen caress, when we rode or drove by the Elwey or Llyn Aled, in the long lime avenue, in the Martens' dingle, and in the woods and gardens of pleasant Craigaderyn. The wretched light in my lantern was beginning to fail; my little fire had died quite out, and the poor sentry shivering outside had long since ceased to warm his hands at the flue. The tent was cold and chill as a tomb, and I was just about to turn in, when a sound, which a soldier never hears without starting instinctively to his weapons, struck my ear.