o then soon successively became both major
and colonel, always kept her in his own quarters, making her his little
pet; and, after the fighting was all over, his brother-officers would
take her out hunting in their howdahs, and she had plenty of
palanquin-bearers, sepoys, and servants at command; and, what was more,
good nurse Mackie was her constant friend and attendant.

Time wore on, and many little incidents of Indian life occurred, which
varied every day indeed, but still left nothing consequential behind
them: there were tiger-hunts, and incursions of Scindian tribes, and
Pindarree chieftains taken captive, and wounded soldiers brought into
the hospital; and often had she and good nurse Mackie tended at the sick
bed-side. And the colonel had the jungle fever, and would not let her go
from his sight; so she caught the fever too, and through Heaven's mercy
was recovered. And the colonel was fonder of her now than ever, calling
her his darling little child, and was proud to display her early budding
beauty to his military friends--pleasant sort of gentlemen, who gave her
pretty presents.

Then she grew up into womanhood, and saw more than one fine uniform at
her feet, but she did not comprehend those kindnesses: and the general
(he was general now) got into great passions with them, and stormed, and
swore, and drove them all away. Nurse Mackie grew to be old, and
sometimes asked her, "Can you keep a secret, child?--no, no, I dare not
trust you yet: wait a wee, wait a wee, my bonnie, bonnie bairn."

And now speedily came the end. The general resolved on returning to his
own old shores: chiefly, as it seemed, to avoid the troublesome
pertinacity of sundry suitors, who sought of him the hand of Emily
Warren for, by this name she was beginning to be called: in her earliest
recollection she was Amina; then at the hill-fort, Emily--Emily--nothing
for years but Emily: and as she grew to womanhood, the general bade her
sign her name to notes, and leave her card at houses, as Emily Warren:
why, or by what right, she never thought of asking. But nurse Mackie had
hinted she might have had "a better name and a truer;" and therefore,
she herself had asked the general what this hint might mean; and he was
so angry that he discharged nurse Mackie at Madras, directly he arrived
there to take ship for England.

Then, just before embarking, poor nurse Mackie came to her secretly, and
said, "Child, I will trust you with a word; you