mboos and camellia bushes before the orderly arrived with the
bag. Bottles went at once into the room that opened on to the veranda
and stood by calmly, not being given to betraying his emotions, while
slowly and clumsily the mess sergeant sorted the letters. At last he
got his packet--it only consisted of some newspapers and a single
letter--and went away back to his seat on the veranda, feeling rather
disappointed, for he had expected to hear from his only brother as well
as from his lady-love. Having relit his pipe--for he was of a slow
and deliberate mind, and it rather enhances a pleasure to defer it a
little--and settled himself in the big chair opposite the camellia bush
just now covered with sealing-wax-like blooms, he opened his letter and
read:--

"My dear George----"

"Good heavens!" he thought to himself, "what can be the matter? She
always calls me 'Darling Bottles!'"

"My dear George," he began again, "I hardly know how to begin this
letter--I can scarcely see the paper for crying, and when I think of you
reading it out in that horrid country it makes me cry more than ever.
There! I may as well get it out at once, for it does not improve by
keeping--it is all over between you and me, my dear, dear old Bottles."

"All over!" he gasped to himself.

"I hardly know how to tell the miserable story," went on the letter,
"but as it must be told I suppose I had better begin from the beginning.
A month ago I went with my father and my aunt to the Hunt Ball at
Atherton, and there I met Sir Alfred Croston, a middle-aged gentleman,
who danced with me several times. I did not care about him much, but
he made himself very agreeable, and when I got home aunt--you know her
nasty way--congratulated me on my conquest. Well, next day he came
to call, and papa asked him to stop to dinner, and he took me in, and
before he went away he told me that he was coming to stop at the George
Inn to fish for trout in the lake. After that he came here every day,
and whenever I went out walking he always met me, and really was kind
and nice. At last one day he asked me to marry him, and I was very angry
and told him that I was engaged to a gentleman in the army, who was in
South Africa. He laughed, and said South Africa was a long way off, and
I hated him for it. That evening papa and aunt set on me--you know they
neither of them liked our engagement--and told me that our affair was
perfectly silly, and that I must be mad t