Excerpt from The Peace Egg and a Christmas Mumming Play The Captain bore a high character, and was a good and clever officer, but that went for nothing against the old man's whim. He made a very good husband too; but even this did not move his father-in-law, who had never held any intercourse with him or his wife since the day of their marriage, and who had never seen his own grand children. Though not so bitterly prejudiced as the old father, the Captain's wife's friends had their doubts about the marriage. The place was not a military station, and they were quiet country folk who knew very little about soldiers, whilst what they imagined was not altogether favourable to red-coats, as they called them. Soldiers are well-looking generally, it is true (and the Captain was more than well-looking - he was handsome); brave, of course, it is their business (and the Captain had V.C. After his name and several bits of ribbon on. His patrol jacket). But then, thought the good people, they are here to-day and gone to'-morrow, you never know where you have them they are probably in debt, possibly married to several women in several foreign countries, and, though they are very courteous in society, who knows -how they treat their wives when they drag them off from their natural friends and protectors to distant lands where no one can call them to account?

Ah, poor thing! Said Mrs John Bull, junior, as she took off her husband's coat on his return from business, a week after the Captain's wedding, I wonder how she feels? There's no doubt the old man behaved disgracefully; but it's a great risk marrying a soldier. It stands to reason.

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