For, naturally, he had joined the array of Volunteers;--fought, I have
heard, "in three actions with the rebels" (Vinegar Hill, for one); and
doubtless fought well: but in the mess-rooms, among the young
military and civil officials, with all of whom he was a favorite, he
had acquired a taste for soldier life, and perhaps high hopes of
succeeding in it: at all events, having a commission in the
Lancashire Militia offered him, he accepted that; altogether quitted
the Bar, and became Captain Sterling thenceforth. From the Militia,
it appears, he had volunteered with his Company into the Line; and,
under some disappointments, and official delays of expected promotion,
was continuing to serve as Captain there, "Captain of the Eighth
Battalion of Reserve," say the Military Almanacs of 1803,--in which
year the quarters happened to be Derry, where new events awaited him.
At a ball in Derry he met with Miss Hester Coningham, the queen of the
scene, and of the fair world in Derry at that time. The acquaintance,
in spite of some Opposition, grew with vigor, and rapidly ripened:
and "at Fehan Church, Diocese of Derry," where the Bride's father had
a country-house, "on Thursday 5th April, 1804, Hester Coningham, only
daughter of John Coningham, Esquire, Merchant in Derry, and of
Elizabeth Campbell his wife," was wedded to Captain Sterling; she
happiest to him happiest,--as by Nature's kind law it is arranged.

Mrs. Sterling, even in her later days, had still traces of the old
beauty: then and always she was a woman of delicate, pious,
affectionate character; exemplary as a wife, a mother and a friend. A
refined female nature; something tremulous in it, timid, and with a
certain rural freshness still unweakened by long converse with the
world. The tall slim figure, always of a kind of quaker neatness; the
innocent anxious face, anxious bright hazel eyes; the timid, yet
gracefully cordial ways, the natural intelligence, instinctive sense