of the farmer's daughter, a young girl with the loveliest of blue eyes, and the most bewitching manners and costume.
The young soldier often found his way again to the hospitable log-house, so often indeed that both he and the young damsel and all her family allowed themselves to live quite oblivious to the fact that he had already entered into a prior engagement. Had Anne Reid given him the slightest reason to think she wished to break with him, he would have consented at once, but she did not do so, and the time came when everybody's delusion had to be dispelled, and a shadow left upon the sunlight of that hitherto happy log-house.
Cobbett was rewarded beyond his deserts for his fidelity to Anne Reid. When she had left St John's he had sent her a purse of a hundred and fifty guineas—being, in fact, the whole of his accumulations since he had been in the army; begging her, if she found the military society in her own home at Woolwich disagreeable, not to spare the money, but to take lodgings with respectable people until he returned to England to marry her; to buy herself good clothes, and not to live by hard work. On his return he found that she had not spent a farthing of the money, but had been drudging away during their separation as a maid of all work at five pounds a year.
They were soon married; Cobbett having, immediately after his arrival in England, procured his discharge from the army.
This step had not been taken from any disgust for the profession. On the contrary, it would appear from his rapid promotion and good standing in the regiment that his character and talents were singularly suited to the military life. His commanding officer. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and his colonel, General Frederick, urged him to remain, offering to use their influence with the King to get him promoted to the rank of an ensign. But Cobbett had long made up his mind, and no prospect, however fine, could affect him; so they gave him his discharge, accompanied by a handsome testimonial of his good conduct while under their command.
What then was his motive? Simply this,—that he might expose and bring to punishment certain officers in the regiment, who he believed guilty of malversation in their several depart-
