The last three weeks of
campaigning in horrible weather had affected his health. When over-tired
he suffered from a stitch in his wounded side, and that uncomfortable
sensation always depressed him. "It's that brute's doing, too," he
thought bitterly.
The day before he had received a letter from home, announcing that his
only sister was going to be married. He reflected that from the time she
was nineteen and he twenty-six, when he went away to garrison life in
Strasbourg, he had had but two short glimpses of her. They had been
great friends and confidants; and now she was going to be given away to
a man whom he did not know--a very worthy fellow no doubt, but not half
good enough for her. He would never see his old Leonie again. She had
a capable little head, and plenty of tact; she would know how to manage
the fellow, to be sure. He was easy in his mind about her happiness but
he felt ousted from the first place in her thoughts which had been his
ever since the girl could speak. A melancholy regret of the days of
his childhood settled upon Captain D'Hubert, third aide-de-camp to the
Prince of Ponte Corvo.
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