sure, Mr Cunningham relieved his mind by explaining that his duty had in fact ended with the delivery of the treasure at the Residency. Strictly speaking, the Commissioner ought then and there to take over the money from him, but it would be simpler to have it made over direct to the Nawab's people from the tumbrils, and so save a double transfer, the Commissioner meanwhile being responsible for its safe custody. Thus Yorke could accept the invitation without any qualms of conscience. He would actually spend a whole day and sleep under the same roof with his beloved. It was like a vision of paradise opening before him.

"And so here is the poor horse that fell with you," said Miss Cunningham, turning towards Devotion, which during the conversation had been standing peacefully a little behind its master in charge of the barelegged groom. "None the worse, I see. How nice the poor fellow looks!" she added, moving up and patting its neck. "Will he eat bread, Mr Yorke? if so, we must give him some presently, when the man brings it for Selim. I am so glad to see it has got off without harm as well as its master. You must have thought it so unkind of us," she added, turning to him, "never to have sent to inquire after you; but Colonel Tartar was calling here, and said you had been dining with him the evening before, and gave a very good account of you." And the pang of jealousy that Yorke felt at hearing of Colonel Tartar's visit was sufficiently allayed by the reflection that Miss Cunningham had been thinking and talking about him. Stopping first to post his sentries, he then with elated heart followed his hosts in their visit to the stables, where the young lady fed her Arab with bread and lucerne grass, reserving, however, some

morsels for Devotion, while Yorke looked on in an ecstasy of pride. Thence they strolled into the garden, and wandered about till it was dusk and time to dress for dinner.

The house, flat-roofed, formed at great square block, one storey high, the floors raised about four feet from the ground, the public rooms in the centre, the sleeping-rooms opening to the spacious veranda which extended round the house. Yorke's room, which seemed big enough to take in the whole of his bungalow, was entered from the east veranda by two enormous doors, which served also as windows: a door on the opposite side communicated with the drawing-room. Miss Cunningham's own rooms, no doubt, would be on the west side, and the thought that she was occupying the same house made the whole building seem sacred; and the young man dressed himself for dinner with a sort of pious awe.

On entering the drawing-room, now dimly illuminated-for it required a great wealth of lamps and candles to light up this great salon properly, an expenditure reserved for large parties-Yorke made out that there was another person present, who proved on closer acquaintance to be Captain Sparrow. That gentleman received him with languid affability, observing that he supposed there was a good deal of duty in the way of treasure-escort and work of that sort, which must be an agreeable relief from the monotony of cantonment life. Then presently Miss Cunningham entered in a dinner dress of silk, for the evenings were still chilly. Surely, thought Yorke, each change of toilet is more becoming than the last. Then came the CommissionerColonel Falkland had returned to his own province-and dinner being announced, they repaired to the breakfast - room, always used for

small parties or when the family were alone, and which with its small round table, well lighted up, looked bright and cheerful by contrast with the dim drawing-room, -Captain Sparrow conducting the lady, Yorke and the Commissioner following.

The dinner was very quiet: the Commissioner was taciturn, according to his wont; while Yorke was almost too happy for conversation, nor did the brilliant epigrammatic turns of speech which would alone have been worthy of utterance in the presence of the beautiful hostess, come readily uppermost. Sparrow, however, in his languid way was talkative enough, and Yorke observed with secret complacency that Miss Cunningham was evidently amused at his harmless vanity and his affectation of refinement. The same sense of humour, he thought, was apparent in the carnestness with which, after their return to the drawing - room, she pressed him to sing, going to the piano and beginning the accompaniment of one of his songs; when the captain, nothing loath, stood up beside her and warbled forth a ditty in his approved style. His song ended, the Commissioner led him away to the adjoining billiardroom, and then followed for Yorke a blissful half-hour, while Miss Cunningham sang to him, on his pressing her, one song after another; and as the young man stood by her side, watching her face, the one point of light in the great dim chamber, they seemed so entirely alone, and he was so borne along on the tide of emotion aroused by the tender accents of her voice, and the nearness of her person, that his humility and bashfulness for once forsook him. Surely, he thought, all this hope cannot be born altogether of delusion. In that gentle breast there needs must be some respon

sive sympathy with so much devotion, which only awaits an appeal to be called forth and in another moment Yorke might have fallen at her feet to pour out his tale of love, his hopes, his fears, his senso of unworthiness to aspire to the priceless reward he sought for, when a voice was heard at the other end of the room, that of Mr Cunningham, asking them to come and join in a four-game, repressing the ecstasy of passion which was on the point of finding utterance. And the words which were rushing to his lips remained unspoken.

The glare of the billiard-room, with its unromantic accessories of settees and cigars, acted like a disenchantment to recall our subaltern to the prosaic realities of everyday life; but he found some compensation for the descent on its being settled that he was to be Miss Cunningham's partner. In billiards, at any rate, he could be her master (although he thought with an introspective sneer that it was a contemptible thing to excel in such a matter), for he was much the best player of the four, while the lady was only a beginner; and to give confidential advice about each stroke, to be even allowed to touch her hand and adjust the taper fingers so as to form a proper rest for the cue, this was a new form of bliss.

But the happiest hour must have an end. The second game finished, Miss Cunningham, placing her fair arms on her father's shoulders, greeted him with a kiss on either cheek, and holding out her hand graciously to each guest, retired from the room. Captain Sparrow followed her example; and then the Commissioner, proposing an early ride in the morning, wished his visitor good-night, and the gentlemen repaired to their respective rooms. Then Yorke, lighting a

cigar, strolled across the park to visit his guards, wandering afterwards about the lawn on his side of the house. He would fain have carried his steps to the other side, when perchance some light might indicate at a distance the shrine which guarded his mistress; but although the watchman and some of the numerous servants of the household had passed that way on their various errands, and he knew therefore that her chamber must be closed, a sense of delicacy restrained him. But at last, tired out with walking, he sought his room, stumbling over his bearer asleep in the veranda, and fell asleep himself while recalling the minutes that had been passed, the voice, the gestures, the words of his beloved.

Next morning, his late hours of the previous night notwithstanding, Yorke was up with the first grey light of dawn, although not sooner than the Commissioner, who was a regular old Indian as regards early rising; but it was with a pang of disappointment that he found only one riding-horse besides Devotion was standing saddled under the portico. Selim was not there. His daughter, Mr Cunningham said, was not going to ride that morning, but would have some tea ready for them when they returned; and accordingly, they rode through the city, which Yorke had never seen before, and where he had the opportunity of contrasting the deferential salaams accorded to the great man on his way through the streets, with the air of insolent curiosity with which any unknown subaltern performing the journey alone would be regarded. The Commissioner had various duties in the town-a new tank in course of excavation to visit, the widening of a new street in progress, the scene of a late robbery to examine, and so forth-and the sun had mounted

high before they returned to the Residency, when, as they entered the park, Yorke's quick eye discovered Miss Cunningham sitting by a tea equipage under the shade of an awning spread by some trees on the western side, whither directing their horses they dismounted. Limited though was his visiting acquaintance, Yorke had often noticed that the Indian habit of a second toilet tended somewhat to impair the early appearance of such of the fair sex as took exercise in the morning. Ladies who came out at mid-day or evening in elaborate costumes, and with hair carefully dressed, would sometimes dispense with these feminine graces when attiring themselves for the early ride or drive, and would appear with careless, not to say dishevelled locks, and appearance generally suggestive of repairs needful to be effected afterwards. No such remissness could be detected in the young lady who now, after morning greetings, began to pour out the tea. Her rich brown hair, though folded in simple braids, was fit, the young man thought, to grace a coronation; the light morning robe was crisp and fresh; in each aspect, he thought, she seemed more noblelooking, more delicate, and more refined. And, see, facing him across the lawn as he sits down, is the shrine from which his goddess has issued. The wide doors in the west veranda thrown open to catch the morning air reveal some mysteries of a chamber within-the dressingglass trimmed with dainty muslin and ribbons, the wardrobe where rest the garments which have the happy duty of enshrining their sweet mistress.

Soon the little party was joined by another horseman, Dr Mackenzie Maxwell, the civil surgeon, who lived about half a mile from the Residency, and had charge of the jail, the hospital, and the Residency

establishments-a benevolent-looking, middle-aged man. Yorke had scarcely ever met him before, for Dr Maxwell lived very much by himself, and had almost forgotten his existence as a member of the Residency circle; and for a moment, on observing the warm greeting accorded to the new-comer, he was disposed to feel jealous, when he remembered having heard that Maxwell was a widower; but this feeling was soon allayed on perceiving the sort of fatherly way in which the doctor addressed his hostess, and the absence of embarrassment between the two. Soon the doctor and the Commissioner rose and strolled into the garden, leaving Miss Cunningham and Yorke alone. But although the latter, fully impressed with the importance of the occasion, was in an agony of suspense as the brief moments flew by, he could not manage to rise in his conversation beyond the level of commonplace; and when the others returned he had only the consolation of there being still a long day before him, during which the Commissioner must be absent in court, and then, perhaps, a word or hint, or even some glance exchanged, might tell him that his case was understood, and not hopeless, and embolden him to pour out his tale of love.

"I have been telling the Commissioner," said the doctor, addressing that gentleman's daughter, "that I think your plan a very good one. What he wants just now is a little rest and change. I daresay a month at Patánpoor may do all that is needed; at any rate it will be time to think of a season in the hills if this little trip fails to set him up. On what day do you think of going away?"

"Going away!" exclaimed Yorke, and in a tone of such unfeigned concern that the other two gentlemen could not help smiling; and Miss

Cunningham, with a little blush, explained that they were thinking of paying Colonel Falkland a visit for three or four weeks before the hot weather set in. Her father had been out of sorts for some time, but they hoped this change and the holiday might be sufficient to set him to rights again, and prevent the necessity for taking leave to the hills. 'Papa dreads the idea of spending a whole hot season away from his beloved cutchery. You know he has never been to the hills all his life."

"Yes," broke in her father, "and I hope I never shall go; a season of Simla lounging would finish me off, I believe, if I went up ill in the first instance."

"Of course Simla is the

And the

"And you?" said Yorke, turning to his daughter,-"what are your feelings in the matter? But I need not ask," he added, with a shade of bitterness in his voice. you must want to go. gayest place in India." subaltern's heart sank within him as he pictured to himself for the moment its beautiful mistress treading the round of mountain dissipation, surrounded by all the male butterflies who flutter about that. favourite resort.

"Of course I should like to see the hills," she replied; "it is impossible to watch the distant peaks. lighted up of a morning from here without longing to explore them;. but I am a domestic creature," she added, smiling, "although you may not suppose so, and I think I should like to spend my first year at any rate quietly here. I have been wandering all my life, and it seems really wrong to begin moving about again just when I am settled in a home at last. But I hope," she added, looking anxiously towards her father, "that it may not be necessary."

This little speech filled Yorke with a transport of delight. This

desire to remain here, knowing as she must his feelings, might he not fairly interpret it to mean encouragement? Could she indeed have said more, without departing from proper maidenly reserve? And as she threw that glance of filial anxiety towards her father he thought she had never looked so beautiful before. "Papa," said the young lady presently, who was employed on some embroidery work, "you have given Dr Maxwell a cigar, but you have not offered one to Mr Yorke."

"I did not know that Mr Yorke smoked," replied her father, hastening to supply the omission by handing him his case; "he refused the offer of one last night in the billiardroom.'

Yorke said, looking a little sheepish as he accepted the proffered cheroot, that he thought perhaps Miss Cunningham might not like the smell of tobacco.

"If she does not," said her father, "then she must be in perpetual discomfort, for I smoke all day long, and in every room in the house, I think. But I offered to give up the practice when first she came, and to keep my smoke to my own room— didn't I, Olivia?"

"You dear old papa! You must have had your old bachelor ways and comforts sufficiently broken in upon by my invasion, without my depriving you of your last remaining solace. Besides," she added, laughingly, "there was some real selfishness at the bottom of my request after all, for I did not want you to banish me to solitude in empty rooms. You are at home little enough as it is. It would be dreadful if you were to keep to your own room in order to enjoy your cigars there. Women should put up with smoking nowadays when it has become such a regular habit. Gentlemen seem to smoke as much here as they do in Italy. Colonel Falkland

is the only person I have met who does not smoke.'

"But then," said Yorke, "if smoking is discomfort to other people, surely it is better the sacrifice should be on the side of giving up what is after all an artificial want. Some ladies declare they can't bear the smell of tobacco even in the open air."

"Don't you think some ladies are a little affected? Could anybody pretend to smell the cigars you gentlemen are smoking now? Even in the house the rooms are so big and curtainless that no smell hangs about them. Besides, even in the open air, gentlemen would never sit quietly in their chairs like this, if they were not allowed to smoke. We women have our fancy-work to keep us from the fidgets. So you see," she added, looking at Yorke archly, "selfishness is at the bottom of one's amiability after all. But gentlemen seem so much more domestic in this country, they deserve to be spoilt a little."

"Perhaps it is because they are petted at home that they are so domestic," observed Yorke. Adorable creature, he thought, perfect in every aspect, if ever woman lived who might insist on those about her dispensing with tobacco and the small vulgarities of life, surely it is you. Yet you make no terms for your beauty and your grace. Your mind is as simple as a child's, despite the lovely frame it is set in!

the

The doctor, his cheroot finished, now rose to go, summoning his groom and horse from the shelter of a neighbouring tree; and a redcoated messenger bringing Commissioner a bundle of official vernacular reports, he lighted another cigar and departed for his own room. Miss Cunningham retired into the recesses of the western veranda; and Yorke repaired to his own side of the building to receive