But the mind goes out
under this regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very
strange, if the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to
brandy-and-water, which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for
a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of
the hollow-eyed future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet
by his wife, and though it had happened to him once or twice to come
home rather late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing
twice and even three times over, it had always been in very cold
weather,--and everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of
glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air.
Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age
at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have _come
out_, and thereafter are considered to be _in company._
"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we
ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That's Matildy. I don't
mean to set _her_ up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a
dozen."
"She's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs.
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