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the idea of such a connection seemed thoroughly repulsive; for although the Count was reported to be unexceptionable in every respect save that he was a good deal younger than his intended bride, Cunningham's Indian experiences were not calculated to remove the insular prejudices of an Englishman; and notwithstanding that his sister wrote to him that her marriage should make no difference to Olivia, for that her future husband was equally desirous with herself that she should continue to make her home with them till her father returned from India, a sudden anxiety now possessed him lest his daughter, living in a foreign household, should also fall in love with a foreigner and so be altogether lost to him. He determined, therefore, that she should join him for the remainder of his service; and, writing to express his decision in terms so peremptory as seemed to the kind aunt a poor requital of the many years of loving care bestowed on his child, he knew scarcely an easy moment till he heard in reply that his instructions would be acted on at once. Mrs Maitland and Olivia made a speedy visit to England, in order that the latter might be placed in charge of the wife of a brother civilian returning to India; and after a brief interval occupied in the preparation of Olivia's outfit, aunt and niece parted at Southampton with mutual tears and sorrowings, each to enter on a new life. The Count had followed his intended bride to London, and the marriage was to take place immediately after Olivia's departure, when the married pair would return to live in Italy. "Farewell, my darling child!" she said, folding her niece to her breast in the little cabin of the steamer, as it lay on the parting morning alongside of the quay in Southampton Docks; "farewell, and

for ever! even if you don't marry in India, your father will never let you come to me again." Olivia could only reply through her tears by returning the embrace; nor was there time for further words, for just at that moment rang the warning-bell, summoning those who were not passengers to leave the vessel.

Thus was Olivia launched upon her new life, of the personages moving around which she had as yet had only two slight glimpses. Some eight years before, Colonel Falkland, returning to England to recover from a wound, had paid a visit to Florence to see his god-daughter, then just entering on girlhood. He stayed there for some weeks, living at an hotel in the neighbourhood of Mr Maitland's apartments, and passing the greater part of each day with his friends; and visi tors in those days to the picturegalleries in that city could not but notice with interest the two sightseers-the bronzed soldier-like man, who walked lame and with the aid of a stick, accompanied by the slight young girl; surely not his daughter, they thought, he seemed too courteous and deferential in manner, and she, though deferential in turn and striving to tend him with care, yet did not evince the familiarity of a child with a parent. The young lady acted as guide and interpreter, while her companion, whose life had been. spent in camps or the dull routine of an Indian official, was never tired of pursuing his first acquaintanceship with art under such auspices; and when his young companion would bring him before some favourite masterpiece, his eyes would often turn involuntarily from the beautiful saint or madonna on canvas to the still more beautiful face, as he thought, lighted up with the rays of innocence and youthful enthusiasm. In such companionship it seemed

to Falkland as if a vision of his youth had come back again, unalloyed by the sadness and sorrow which marked that episode of earlier days. It is her mother come back to earth again, he said to himself; God grant she may be spared to grace it longer! Olivia and her aunt on their part had been prepared to receive their new acquaintance with warmth, as one holding the highest place in Mr Cunningham's esteem. The greatest friend I have in the world, he wrote to his daughter, and the finest soldier in the Indian army. "And the most perfect gentleman," declared Olivia's aunt with enthusiasm, after he had paid his first visit. "I thought Indian officers would be mere soldiers, with uncouth manners; but our colonel might be a prince, although I hope he will dress better when he gets to England, and take to wearing shirtcollars. Poor man! he seems to suffer a good deal from his wound, although he never complains. I think on the mornings when he comes in late, and won't take any breakfast, that he must have had a bad night." As for Olivia, who - had never before met any gentleman, young or old, on intimate terms, and from whose girlish mind the germs of any tenderer emotions were absent, her godfather seemed the impersonation of all that was noble and dignified and kind. She would fain have asked him about the wars in which he had taken part, as the little party sate to gether of an afternoon or evening at Mrs Maitland's lodgings, or rest ed by the wayside after a drive to some spot of interest in the neighbourhood; but Falkland was not a man to talk much about himself, or indeed to talk much about any thing, and the conversation usually turned upon the travels and experiences of the ladies, Mrs Maitland

taking the principal share, and the colonel merely throwing in an occasional question or remark by way of fuel to keep the fire alight. Or if Falkland and Olivia were alone, their talk would mostly revolve about Olivia's pursuits and half-formed thoughts; for her new friend, while reserved about himself, was yet of a sympathetic nature which invited the confidence of others, although there was no want of humour or even a certain playful yet subdued sarcasm in his conversation. And had Olivia been capable of such analysis, she might have discovered that while she had opened to her new companion all the recesses of her young mind, she knew little about him save that he was kind, gentle, and unselfish, bent chiefly on ministering to the happiness of those around him. That the young girl should have endowed him with every noble attribute was a natural consequence of her being at the age of hero-worship. Thus when at last Falkland was obliged to bring his visit to an end, and to continue his journey towards England, the parting left Olivia with a new ideal of perfection to add to the gallery of saints and madonnas enshrined in the respect of her fervent young heart; while Falkland, although no definite ideas for the future yet possessed him, went off with a new interest in life awakened. The leave-taking was provisional only; for the plan was discussed of a meeting in the autumn on the Lake of Como, when, said Falkland in his low voice, looking into her ingenuous young face with kindly smile, as he held her hand at parting, his young mistress should go on with her course of instruction in Italian. But when autumn arrived, he was summoned to India to take up the important appointment which he now held;

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and the letter from the GovernorGeneral himself containing the offer, was a form of application for his services which a zealous public servant could not refuse to obey. So their next meeting was deferred till seven years later, when Olivia arrived at Mustaphabad, and the child-girl had developed into the beautiful young woman.

One other Indian acquaintance was made by Olivia, four years later, when Rupert Kirke, a lieutenant in the Bengal army, arrived at Venice, where Mrs Maitland and her niece were then staying, also, like Falkland, on his way home. Kirke was first cousin to Cunningham and his sister, and brought an introduction from the former. "A clever fellow," said the brother, in his letter, "and a first-rate soldier, with a great future before him, if he only keeps straight." And indeed Rupert Kirke looked every inch a soldier, and although not the least a lady's man, as the term is understood, was found to be excellent company; well-mannered, well-dressed, well-read, and apparently both good-natured and good-tempered. Olivia took a great liking to her new-found relative, while Kirke for his part did not conceal his gratification in her society, nor, although he made little pretence of caring for pictures or churches, his enjoyment of the sight-seeing excursions made under her guidance -excursions, however, in which Mrs Maitland invariably joined, for Olivia was no longer a child. And after he had passed on to England, a correspondence was maintained between the two, when Kirke's clever letters came to be very interesting to the fair recipient. The elder lady, however, did not respond with warmth to the feelings of her companion about the letters and their writer. Without being a keen

VOL. CXVIII.—NO. DCCXVII.

judge of character, there appeared something of hardness and apparent unscrupulousness about Kirke which instinctively repelled her; and Olivia perceiving that her aunt did not share her admiration for him, did not seek to exchange confidences with her on the subject.

Kirke too, as well as Falkland, expressed the intention when leaving Italy of paying his relatives another visit, but was diverted from carrying it into effect by the outbreak of the Crimean war, at the first rumour of which he set out for Constantinople, seeking employment as a volunteer with the Turkish army. In this capacity he seemed on the road to enhance his military reputation, when he was unfortunately tempted to accept a commission in the Turkish contingent, and thereby found himself shelved from active service during the remainder of the war, on the termination of which he was obliged to return to India.

To Olivia Cunningham, sailing for India, the change of life was even more complete than to the other young ladies who were borne in the same steamer with her out of Southampton Docks. They, for the most part, though leaving friends and homes behind them, had been brought up to regard England as a temporary resting-place, and the voyage to India as the culminating point in their girlhood. To Olivia this departure for that country came as the result of a sudden resolve, made necessary by the breaking up of European ties. Nor had she ever known the meaning of home as that term is understood. For her it had not meant sisters and brothers, and home interests, and a settled dwelling-place. Her home, so far as she had been able to realise the idea, had been a suite of apartments at Florence, succeeded by a suite of apartments at Rome or Naples; her friends had

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been passing visitors, acquaintances, tween a mother and even the kindforeigners and English, met and dropped; and although the relation between her aunt and herself had been based on mutual love and affection, her heart could not but whisper when the former announced her coming change of life, involving a new and absorbing interest of her own, apart from her niece, that after all there must be a difference be

est aunt; henceforward, at any rate, their lives must run apart. Her father, on the other hand, had so far been a sort of shadowy providence watching over her from a distance, whose manifestations were mainly associated with punctual remittances, handsome presents, and brief, infrequent letters; and whose very form and features were as yet unknown.

CHAPTER XV.

So much as to the antecedents of the maiden who had arrived at Mustaphabad at the opening of our story, fancy free, although with two more or less dim ideals of the hero type in her imagination, looking with eagerness, but without much emotion, to the meeting with her father. As to Mr Cunningham, he was a man too much occupied with official duties and the business of the hour to practise mental analysis; but probably his feelings on the occasion were of a mixed nature, compounded of a pleasurable excitement at the expectation of greeting his beautiful young daughter, and a sense of dismay at the prospect of this invasion of his leisure and enforced alteration of his old-bachelor habits.

The first meeting between two persons who, though nearly related, are yet virtually strangers, ignorant of each other's thoughts, feelings, and tastes, even of each other's past life-whose intercourse has consisted in the exchange of brief and formal letters, and who have had, so far, nothing in common but the interest and the affection born of a sense of duty-must needs be attended with more or less of restraint and embarrassment; but Mr Cunningham's anxiety lest the first greetings should partake of the nature of a scene was at once dispelled by the tact and good taste of his daughter; even the

dust and fatigue of the journey could not do much to impair the charm of her appearance; and as she stepped out of the carriage at the roadside station, whither he had gone to meet her, as already described, her father found her even more graceful and beautiful than the forerunning accounts had led him to expect; and as Olivia, putting her arms round his neck, and kissing him, said, "So here we are at last! it has been such a long journey ;" and then, turning to her maid who was alighting from the carriage behind, added, "Justine, this is my papa, who has come all this way to meet us,"-Cunningham felt that the scene of which he had been in dread had been escaped. And when, soon after they had started in the camel-carriage for the last stage of her long journey, Olivia took his hand fondly, and leaning on his shoulder, said, "Papa, you look so young, it must seem quite odd to have a great big daughter like me,"-her father, responding warmly to the embrace, began to feel that it was not so dreadful a thing to have his daughter back after all. Arrived at Mustaphabad, Olivia expressed herself as delighted with the Residency and all about it. The apartments which her aunt had at Florence were very large and fine, but they were nothing like the reception - rooms at the Resi

dency-while her own rooms were charming; every want and comfort had been thought of and provided, and her father was able to say with satisfaction that all this had been newly arranged for her especial benefit. She was equally pleased with the gardens; the leaves in midwinter, the multitude of squirrels and strange birds, even the familiar crows hopping about the edge of society with a view to pick up the stray crumbs left at the early breakfast taken in the veranda-all these novelties appeared full of interest for her, and her father experienced a sense of deep relief to find that his fears had been groundless lest she should prove to be a fine lady, spoilt for Indian life by foreign travel. A silent man himself, and restrained from expressing much interest in her former life by a sense of indignation at what he considered his sister's misalliance, his shyness was soon dissipated by his daughter's sympathetic ways, as she thus rapidly identified herself with his interests and her new home. The Commissioner soon found that the cheerful breakfast table with his daughter opposite to him was a great improvement on the solitary meal, dawdled over with a book, to which he had been accustomed; still more when on his proposing to retire into another room before lighting his cigar afterwards, Olivia insisted on his smoking without rising. The obligatory dinner-parties which he used to dread seemed no longer the same dreary infliction. With his beautiful daughter acting as hostess, these solemn ordeals became comparatively lively; the guests no longer appeared to be insufferably bored. The morning ride too, with her for a companion, was in pleasing contrast to the lonely ramble on horseback to which he had been accustomed; he now got into the way of coming over from the court

house for luncheon, and even went the length of taking an occasional evening drive with Olivia in the new barouche which had arrived for her use, a mode of amusement which no one had ever seen him indulge in before.

Such, then, was Olivia's new home, which, if it offered nothing that was not in unison with her gentle disposition, yet was not of a sort to develop the warmer feelings of her nature. Her life had been so far a happy one; she had never known disappointment or sorrow, and so it continued to be; but it was a life of chastened affection and without sentiment; and at an age when most English girls in India are wives and mothers, the great romance of life had not even yet presented itself. With her, life had been made up of the study of art and the pursuit of amusement in sober fashion; the graces more than the affections had been cultivated; and so far the transfer to an Indian home had not caused a change. The relations between father and daughter were those of mutual respect and calm affection; and a looker-on might have said that Miss Cunningham's disposition was one in which the effect of amiable temper was enhanced by polished manner, rather than one of deep feeling. Once only did her father step out of his usual reserve; one day when his daughter was in his room standing over him while he wrote a letter, he unlocked a drawer of his writingtable and took out a little pictureframe. "You may like to see that, my dear," he said, with face still turned downwards on his letter, and put it into her hands. It was the portrait of her mother, a poorly-executed affair in the stiff drawing of a native artist, but giving the impression of being a faithful likeness. "You are the very image of her," he said, after a short pause, in a low

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