Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1907-04-13

south coast was given up altogether, and
had my own rooms apportioned TO me
at the Hall. / was sent to Elton; l was
allowed TO keep beagles; the servants,
male and female, were obsequious to me.
Later on came Sandhurst and a commits
sion in a crack cavalry regiment, with
liberal allowance and the entree into all
that was brightest and smartest in Lon
don society, a natural state of things
for young man with not only expecta-
tions, but an adoring mother always
ready to keep open house for her sons
friends, and fill it with pretty girls for
his amusement.
by this time my mother had given
up keeping house for the Squire in Wilt
shire. To him and to the world in gen
eral she pleaded that it wdSSShe delicacy
of her lungs, that delicacy which her
little girl, now dead, had inherited from
her, that made the Wiltshire climate too
severe for her. But to me she owned
that still stronger reason for not liv-
ing there was the mournful dullness of
the great house, combined with the
monkish habits and growing morose-
ness of the Squire. She still went there
occasionally, when he was i'll, or in the
shooting season, and | was always free
to bring down what friends ! liked; but
for the most part she resided in the
Grosvenor Square house which my uncle
who had never entered it himself since
his sons death-allowed her to use.
"As for me, | was always quite happy
in the old Wiltshire home, and got on
very well with the Squire-better in
deed than my mother did, for the very
reason that though he was always sharp
and brusque in his manner, and far less
genial with me than he had been in my
poor cousins lifetime, | never stood in
the slightest fear of him, or showed the
nervous anxiety to please him, and to
find out and obey his whims and preiu
dices, which my poor mother found so
wearing, and which seemed sometimes
almost as irritating to the Squire him
self.
Left to myself indeed l should prob
ably have grown to look on the old gen.
tleman as a father, and have gone to
him with my troubles and scrapes as
naturally as with pleasanter matters;
but from the time of my leaving school
this course was tabooed by my mother.
Whatever difficulties or wrong doing ]
might get into, she implored me to come
to her only, and never to my great uncle.
did not know, she said how hard and
bitter he could be; or what a difference
it might make in my whah prospects
and, for that matter, hers too-if he were
ever to take dislike to me. Besides, he
had known sufficient grief over his son;
sne had made up her mind that in me he
should have nothing but pleasure and
compensation.
well. however bad and unwise in it
self such counsel might be for lad whose
position placed him especially, in need of
mans guidance and restraint, it is not
to be supposed that the youngster him
self would be likely to kick at it, or OBJ
iect to the substitution of an easy going,
indulgent mother for a grumpy old gen.
tleman; and by good fortune my tenden-
eies were not sufficiently evil to make
my sins very heinous. Drink and low
company were never to my taste, and
even women at that time had little at
traction for me. A rafting burst Across
country on a good mount, or an evenings
whist with three crack players would
outweigh the charms of the prettiest girl
These were my temptations, you see, and
it was the cards especially that landed
IlESb III utDl. anu bHtH 1Hlu
Il have said that my uncle gave me
liberal a1owance-mOre than liberal.
dare say he considered it, seeing that it
exceeded the entire income on which my
father had maintained himself, his wife
and children. But circumstances alter
cases, and the expenses of a married Of
f1cer in line regiment in the Northwest
ern Provinces are not to be compared
with those of bachelor lieutenant in
crack cavalry corps stationed at Knights
bridge, with fashionable mother living
close by, and entertaining or entertain
'ment of one sort or another going on
morning, noon. and night. Added to this
had the misfortune of belonging to a
regiment in which high play was the rule,
not the exception, and where it was no
uncommon thing for men to make up all
night whist parties at their club once or
twice a week at which some hundreds
of pounds sometimes changed hands in
the course of a sitting.
"The worst of it was that this sort Of
thing was chiefly in vogue among the
younger officers. Our colonel was a man
who never touched card, and who had
more than once expressed stern disap-
prevail of the habit of gambling so preva.
lent among his subalterns.
80 BE CONTINUED.