And when she asserted that Colonel Osborne had known her since she was a baby, she fell again into the same mistake.
Colonel Osborne had indeed known her when she was a baby, and had in old days been the very intimate friend of her father; but of herself he had seen little or nothing since those baby days, till he had met her just as she was about to become Mrs.Trevelyan; and though it was natural that so old a friend should come to her and congratulate her and renew his friendship, nevertheless it was not true that he made his appearance in her husband's house in the guise of the useful old family friend, who gives silver cups to the children and kisses the little girls for the sake of the old affection which he has borne for the parents.

We all know the appearance of that old gentleman, how pleasant and dear a fellow he is, how welcome is his face within the gate, how free he makes with our wine, generally abusing it, how he tells our eldest daughter to light his candle for him, how he gave silver cups when the girls were born, and now bestows tea-services as they get married,--a most useful, safe, and charming fellow, not a year younger-looking or more nimble than ourselves, without whom life would be very blank.

We all know that man; but such a man was not Colonel Osborne in the house of Mr.Trevelyan's young bride.
Emily Rowley, when she was brought home from the Mandarin Islands to be the wife of Louis Trevelyan, was a very handsome young woman, tall, with a bust rather full for her age, with dark eyes--eyes that looked to be dark because her eye-brows and eye-lashes were nearly black, but which were in truth so varying in colour, that you could not tell their hue.

Her brown hair was very dark and very soft; and the tint of her complexion was brown also, though the colour of her cheeks was often so bright as to induce her enemies to say falsely of her that she painted them.

And she was very strong, as are some girls who come from the tropics, and whom a tropical climate has suited.
She could sit on her horse the whole day long, and would never be weary with dancing at the Government House balls.