"The blue arms of the lovely boy Invest him, as grey clouds the rising sun."
Lord L. remembered, and even experienced, something of a consolatory feeling, in faithfully performing the promise which, within the first happy year of his marriage, he had made to his beloved wife, and which had seemed to give her so much pleasure: we mean that which respected placing and advancing Edmund in the navy. His lordship accordingly wrote from abroad to his friend, Lord Fitz Ullin, and Edmund, at the age of twelve, was received into the naval college at Portsmouth.
This was, no doubt, a very wise and proper arrangement; yet there were those to whom it caused infinite grief: we speak of the twins, who, though they had never been expressly told that Edmund was their brother, had learned to love him as such; and whether they really thought he was so, or never thought about the matter, were in the habit, in all their little plays and pastimes, of calling him brother Edmund, and fancying that nothing could be done without him.
His vacations, however, were all spent at Lodore House, and were joyful in proportion to the sorrows of parting. On the first of those memorable occasions, Mrs. Montgomery absolutely wept over him; Frances frolicked round him, as if obliged to exhaust herself by fatigue, to moderate her transports; while little Julia stood silently, and with a pensive expression, quite close to him; and when, after performing any extraordinary new feat for the amusement of Frances, he would stoop, and ask of his little favourite what he should do for her, she would answer, with a glow of enthusiasm, "Stay always with me!"
He generally brought some tasks home, which were to be learned before his return to college. When he sat at these, Frances would fidget round the table, in visible discontent--stop straight opposite to him, put her head on one side, watch to meet his eye, and make him laugh; failing in this, try to play alone; and finding this also dreadfully stupid, return to the charge; while Julia would get on a part of his chair, hold his hand and remain perfectly still, till the hand was borrowed to turn over a leaf, when she would follow it with an appealing look, which look, being repaid by a fond caress, she would retake the hand, and sit again as motionless as before. At length, poor Lady Frances, infected by the dullness of her companions, would sometimes bring a chair on the other side, and insist on having the other hand, which would reduce Edmund to the necessity of fastening his book open on the table with another book; after which arrangement, we must confess, that, however unjust the proceeding, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of the injured party, it was always the hand which Frances held, which was borrowed to turn over leaves, &c. &c.