The summer passed away joyous and pleasant as the former had been, and season succeeded to season, until three years had elapsed in uninterrupted prosperity and tranquillity. Contented with the department he held, and bounding his ambition to the sphere in which he then moved, De Brooke neither sought nor desired higher honours; happy in quiet possession of that station, the advantages of which were the more endeared to him as it had succeeded to so many trying afflictions.
Having obtained, by a timely application to Government, the object most agreeable to him, a renewal of his command, the General was the more gratified as it gave him a degree of assurance in the bright anticipations he indulged relative to the future welfare of his little family, independent of aid derived from his father.
In such reflections the past turmoils of his life were often forgotten, whilst he looked forward to years of increasing happiness. But of the deceitfulness at best of all earthly hopes, those of the General, erected on the same sandy foundation, proved an example.
Such were the views which the present peaceful and even tenor of General De Brooke's existence suggested during his three years' residence at the
