I told my father calmly that it was an order for foreign service.

Nothing could represent such an order to them in a flattering point

of view. All their fears, all their anxieties were to be renewed, and

perhaps in the end not to be so happily relieved. I therefore made no

comments, but professed that the future now opened to me was flattering

to my prospects, and I further added that I considered active

service in Europe as a safeguard from the more distant and unhealthy

colonies.

[Illustration:

_John Hoppner._