espite the fact that the gaieties of the young men
wore a more staring colour in this old-fashioned place than they would
have done in a large and modern city.

CHAPTER II

Regularly once a week they rode out in marching order.

Returning up the town on one of these occasions, the romantic pelisse
flapping behind each horseman's shoulder in the soft south-west wind,
Captain Maumbry glanced up at the oriel. A mutual nod was exchanged
between him and the person who sat there reading. The reader and a
friend in the room with him followed the troop with their eyes all the
way up the street, till, when the soldiers were opposite the house in
which Laura lived, that young lady became discernible in the balcony.

'They are engaged to be married, I hear,' said the friend.

'Who--Maumbry and Laura? Never--so soon?'

'Yes.'

'He'll never marry. Several girls have been mentioned in connection with
his name. I am sorry for Laura.'

'Oh, but you needn't be. They are excellently matched.'

'She's only one more.'

'She's one more, and more still. She has regularly caught him. She is a
born player of the game of hearts, and she knew how to beat him in his
own practices. If there is one woman in the town who has any chance of
holding her own and marrying him, she is that woman.'

This was true, as it turned out. By natural proclivity Laura had from
the first entered heart and soul into military romance as exhibited in
the plots and characters of those living exponents of it who came under
her notice. From her earliest young womanhood civilians, however
promising, had no chance of winning her interest if the meanest warrior
were within the horizon. It may be that the position of her uncle's
house (which was her home) at the corner of West Street nearest the
barracks, the daily passing of the troops, the constant blowing of
trumpet-calls a furlong from her windows, coupled with the fact that she
knew nothing of the inner realities of military life, and hence idealized
it, had also helped her mind's original bias for thinking men-at-arms the
only ones worthy of a woman's heart.

Captain Maumbry was a typical prize; one whom all surrounding maidens had
coveted, ached for, angled for, wept for, had by her judicious management
become subdued to her purpose; and in addition to the pleasure of
marrying the man she loved, Laura had the joy of feeling herself hated by
the mothers of all the marriageable girls of th