The lovely Italian, whose very costume is a natural following of a Raphael, is no more like the pretty Liverpool damsel than Genoa is to Glasnevin; and yet what the deuce have they, dear souls, with their feet upon a soft carpet and their eyes upon the pages of Scott or Byron, to do with all the cotton or dimity that ever was printed?
But let us not repine; that very plastic character is our greatest blessing." "I'm not so sure that it always exists," said the doctor, dubiously, as though his own experience pointed otherwise.
"Well, go ahead!" said the skipper, who evidently disliked the digression thus interrupting the adjutant's story.
"Well, we marched along, looking right and left at the pretty faces--and there were plenty of them, too--that a momentary curiosity drew to the windows; but although we smiled and ogled and leered as only a newly arrived regiment can smile, ogle, or leer, by all that's provoking we might as well have wasted our blandishments upon the Presbyterian meeting-house, that frowned upon us with its high-pitched roof and round windows.
"'Droll people, these,' said one; 'Rayther rum ones,' cried another; 'The black north, by Jove!' said a third: and so we went along to the barracks, somewhat displeased to think that, though the 18th were slow, they might have met their match.
"Disappointed, as we undoubtedly felt, at the little enthusiasm that marked our _entree_, we still resolved to persist in our original plan, and accordingly, early the following morning, announced our intention of giving amateur theatricals.

The mayor, who called upon our colonel, was the first to learn this, and received the information with pretty much the same kind of look the Archbishop of Canterbury might be supposed to assume if requested by a a friend to ride 'a Derby.' The incredulous expression of the poor man's face, as he turned from one of us to the other, evidently canvassing in his mind whether we might not, by some special dispensation of Providence, be all insane, I shall never forget.
"His visit was a very short one; whether concluding that we were not quite safe company, or whether our notification was too much for his nerves, I know not.
"We were not to be balked, however.

Our plans for gayety, long planned and conned over, wore soon announced in all form; and though we made efforts almost super-human in the cause, our plays were performed to empty benches, our balls were unattended, our picnic invitations politely declined, and, in a word, all our advances treated with a cold and chilling politeness that plainly said, 'We'll none of you.' "Each day brought some new discomfiture, and as we met at mess, instead of having, as heretofore, some prospect of pleasure and amusement to chat over, it was only to talk gloomily over our miserable failures, and lament the dreary quarters that our fates had doomed us to.
"Some months wore on in this fashion, and at length--what will not time do ?--we began, by degrees, to forget our woes.

Some of us took to late hours and brandy-and-water; others got sentimental, and wrote journals and novels and poetry; some made acquaintances among the townspeople, and out in to a quiet rubber to pass the evening; while another detachment, among which I was, got up a little love affair to while away the tedious hours, and cheat the lazy sun.
"I have already said something of my taste in beauty; now, Mrs.Boggs was exactly the style of woman I fancied.

She was a widow; she had black eyes,--not your jet-black, sparkling, Dutch-doll eyes, that roll about and twinkle, but mean nothing; no, hers had a soft, subdued, downcast, pensive look about them, and were fully as melting a pair of orbs as any blue eyes you ever looked at.
"Then, she had a short upper lip, and sweet teeth; by Jove, they were pearls! and she showed them too, pretty often.