staches.

"And you," Cecil went on, regardless of the interruption, "told me you
never complimented any woman you respected; so that speech just now
doesn't say much for your opinion of me."

"How dare I begin to like you?" laughed Vivian.

"Don't you know Levinge and Castlereagh were great friends of mine? Poor
fellows! the sole object of their desires now is six feet of Crimean
sod, if we're lucky enough to get out there." Cecil colored. Levinge's
and Castlereagh's hard drinking and gloomy aspect at mess were popularly
attributed to the witchery of the St. Aubyn. Canada, while she was in
it, was as fatal to the Service as the Cape or the cholera.

"If I talked so romantically, Colonel Vivian, with what superb mockery
you would curl your mustaches. Surely the Iron Hand (wasn't that your
sobriquet in Caffreland?) does not believe in broken hearts?"

"Perhaps not; but I _do_ believe in some people's liking to try and
break them."

"So do I. It is a favorite pastime with your sex," said Cecil, beating
the hearth-rug impatiently with her little satin shoe.

"I don't think we often attack," laughed Vivian. "We sometimes yield out
of amiability, and we sometimes take out the foils in self-defence,
though we are no match for those delicate hands that use their Damascus
blades so skilfully. We soon learn to cry quarter!"

"To a dozen different conquerors in as many months, then!" cried Cecil,
with a defiant toss of her head.

Vivian looked down on her as a Newfoundland might look down on a small
and impetuous-minded King Charles, who is hoping to irritate him. Just
then three other people staying there came in. A fat old dowager and a
thin daughter, who had turquoise eyes, and from whom, being a great
pianist, we all fled in mortal terror of a hailstorm of Thalberg and
Hertz, and a cousin of Syd's, Cossetting, a young chap, a blondin, with
fair curls parted down the centre, whose brains were small, hands like a
girl's, and thoughts centred on dew _bouquets_ and his own beauty, but
who, having a baronetcy, with much tin, was strongly set upon by the
turquoise eyes, but appeared himself to lean more towards the Canadian,
as a greater contrast to himself, I suppose.

"How do you do, Cos?" said Vivian, carelessly. The Iron Hand very
naturally scorned this effeminate _patte de velours_.

"You here!" lisped the baronet. "Delighted to see you! thought you'd
killed yourself over a fence, or something, before this----"

"