A Reputed Changeling

Nor was anybody more joyous than little Philip, winning his Nana for a better mother to him than his own could ever have been.

It was in a blue velvet coat that Colonel Archfield was married.  He had resigned his Austrian commission; and though the ‘Salamander,’ was empowered to offer him an excellent staff appointment in the English army, he decided to refuse.  Sir Philip showed signs of having been aged and shaken by the troubles of the winter, and required his son’s assistance in the care of his property, and little Philip was growing up to need a father’s hand, so that Charles came to the conclusion that there was no need to cross the old Cavalier’s dislike to the new regime, nor to make his mother and wife again suffer the anxieties of knowing him on active service, while his duties lay at home.

Sedley Archfield, after a long illness, owed recovery both in body and mind to Mrs. Oakshott, and by her arrangement finally obtained a fresh commission in a regiment raised for the defence of the possessions of the East India Company.  And that the poor changeling was still tenderly remembered might be proved by the fact that when the bells rung for Queen Anne’s coronation there was one baby Peregrine at Fareham and another at Oakwood.