When Jessie left school the first difficulty presented itself--in
other words, the necessity arose of fulfilling the conditions of
the will. At that time I was already settled at The Glen Tower,
and her living six weeks in our dismal solitude and our humdrum
society was, as she herself frankly wrote me word, quite out of
the question. Fortunately, she had always got on well with her
uncle and his family; so she exerted her liberty of choice, and,
much to her own relief and to mine also, passed her regular six
weeks of probation, year after year, under Mr. Richard
Yelverton's roof.

During this period I heard of her regularly, sometimes from my
fellow-guardian, sometimes from my son George, who, whenever his
military duties allowed him the opportunity, contrived to see
her, now at her aunt's house, and now at Mr. Yelverton's. The
particulars of her character and conduct, which I gleaned in this
way, more than sufficed to convince me that the poor major's plan
for the careful training of his daughter's disposition, though
plausible enough in theory, was little better than a total
failure in practice. Miss Jessie, to use the expressive common
phrase, took after her aunt. She was as generous, as impulsive,
as light-hearted, as fond of change, and gayety, and fine
clothes--in short, as complete and genuine a woman as Lady
Westwick herself. It was impossible to reform the "Queen of
Hearts," and equally impossible not to love her. Such, in few
words, was my fellow-guardian's report of his experience of our
handsome young ward.

So the time passed till the year came of which I am now
writing--the ever-memorable year, to England, of the Russian war.