are too beautiful and delicate to be the wife of a
poor subaltern with little beside his pay. I can honestly say that I
hope you will be happy. I don't ask you to think of me too often, as
that might make you less so, but perhaps sometimes when you are quiet
you will spare your old lover a thought or two, because I am sure nobody
could care for you more than I do. You need not be afraid that I shall
forget you or marry anybody else. I shall do neither the one nor the
other. I must close this now to catch the mail; I don't know that there
is anything more to say. It is a hard trial--very; but it is no good
being weak and giving way, and it consoles me to think that you are
'bettering yourself' as the servants say. Good-bye, dear Madeline. May
God bless you, is now and ever my earnest prayer.

"J. G. Peritt."

Scarcely was this letter finished and hastily dispatched when a loud
voice was heard calling, "Bottles, Bottles, my boy, come rejoice with
me; the orders have come--we sail in a fortnight;" followed by the owner
of the voice, another subaltern, and our hero's bosom friend. "Why,
you don't seem very elated," said he of the voice, noting his friend's
dejected and somewhat dazed appearance.

"No--that is, not particularly. So you sail in a fortnight, do you?"

"'You sail?' What do you mean? Why, we _all_ sail, of course, from the
colonel down to the drummer-boy."

"I don't think that I--I am going to sail, Jack," was the hesitating
answer.

"Look here, old fellow, are you off your head, or have you been
liquoring up, or what?"

"No--that is, I don't think so; certainly not the first--the second, I
mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean that, in short, I am sending in my papers. I like this climate
--I, in short, am going to take to farming."

"Sending in your papers! Going to take to farming! And in this
God-forsaken hole, too. You _must_ be screwed."

"No, indeed. It is only ten o'clock."

"And how about getting married, and the girl you are engaged to, and
whom you are looking forward so much to seeing. Is she going to take to
farming?"

Bottles winced visibly.

"No, you see--in short, we have put an end to that. I am not engaged
now."

"Oh, indeed," said the friend, and awkwardly departed.

II

Twelve years have passed since Bottles sent in his papers, and in twelve
years many things happen. Amongst them recently it had happened that our
hero's only and elder brother had, owing to a