_My Dear Terence,
I have heard all about you and your doings from Mary, and I am proud of
you. It is grand satisfaction that you should have won your lieutenancy,
and that you should be on the general's staff; as to your being a colonel,
although only a Portuguese one, it is simply astounding. I don't care so
much about the rank, for the Portuguese officers are poor creatures, not
one in fifty of them knows anything of his duty; but what I do value is
your independent command. That will give you opportunities for
distinguishing yourself that can never fall in the way of a subaltern of
the line, and I fancy, now that you have got Wellesley at the head, there
will be plenty of such opportunities.
I was delighted, as you may guess, when I got Mary's letter from London. I
had just settled at the old house, and mighty lonely I felt with no one to
speak to, and the wind whistling in at the broken windows, and the whole
place in confusion. So putting aside Mary, I was glad enough to have some
excuse for running away. I took the next coach for Dublin; found, by good
luck, a packet just sailing for London; and got there a week later. She is
a nice girl and a pretty one; but I suppose I need not tell you that. I
told her it was a poor place I was going to take her to, but she would be
as welcome as the flowers in May; but she only laughed and said, that
after being shut up for a year in a single room, and having nothing but
bread and water, it would not matter a pin to her what it was like.
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