he grounds or in Dalhousie Park, and
dances at the Club, were delightful, and their world was sympathetic
and smiled upon the engagement.

Mrs. Gregory loved a wedding. Her rooms, appointments and well-drilled
staff readily lent themselves to such festivals, and why, she asked,
should Sophy not be married from the "Barn," take a trip up the river
for her honeymoon, in order to see something of the real country, and
buy her trousseau after her arrival in London?

Fired with this project, both she and Shafto dispatched long and
plausible letters to Mrs. Leigh; but Mrs. Leigh declined to entertain
the idea and, in equally long and eloquent effusions, set forth the
fact that she had seen nothing of her youngest daughter for nearly two
years and claimed a share of her company ere she was carried away to
another home. She had, however, given a cordial assent to Sophy's
engagement, and declared that she would gladly accept Douglas Shafto as
a son, but Sophy must be married from home and in the old church at
Chelsea.

As Mrs. Gregory returned this letter, she said:

"Well, Sophy, you must only take a sort of pre-honeymoon tour; we will
go up to Mandalay, and maybe explore a bit of the Shan hills; I shall
coax George to come--he has not had a holiday for ages. Douglas must
get a fortnight off duty, and Martin Kerr, our donnish old cousin, who
is arriving from Calcutta in a day or two, may accompany us; he is a
bachelor, very well off, and has lived all his life like a hermit crab
in his college in Oxford. Lately he had a bad breakdown, and was
ordered an immense rest and change; so now he has ventured out to blink
at the universe beyond Carfax and the High, I expect he will find us
shamelessly trivial and ignorant. How his eyes will open when they
look upon this glaring world and behold some glaring facts! I shall
invite Miss Maitland to join our party; she is of a nice suitable age,
and I shall pair her off with Martin; we will take George's _durwan_,
as courier, for he has Upper Burma at his finger-ends, and will see
that we are comfortable."

The projected tour proved entirely successful; Mandalay was reached in
thirty hours. From Mandalay, after a few days' halt, the explorers
fared to farther and less trodden fields, visited the ruby mines, and
the wonderful remains of Pagan; occasionally they found the
accommodation at _zayats_, or rest houses, a little rough, but this was
handsomely discounted by novel sights