When Hubert had been three years at school, he obtained, through the influence of friends, a cadetship in one of the regiments belonging to the East India Company; he was still only a boy, and his parents had rather he had not gone entirely away from them so soon, for they felt, and with some truth, that while he was at school he was at least under their protection, if not their guidance. Hubert, however, came home to them a fine noble-looking youth, delighted at the prospect before him, and as proud and vain as possible at being at last really a soldier.