fine little fellow, and game for anything."

"It is extremely good of you," cries Eleanor, catching the dog up in
her arms, and feeding him with biscuits.

She puts both the strangers at their ease at once. It is long since
she has had anyone fresh to talk to, and the time flies, for they all
three have much to say. Eleanor will not let them go.

"You must stay and lunch with me," she murmurs persuasively. "Carol
will be so angry if I don't keep you, and the days are so long without
him."

"I can't think how it was we did not meet if he rode our way," declares
Major Short, when lunch is over, and Eleanor has begged them to smoke.

"Nor I; but he must be home early."

"Is that your guitar?" asks Major Short.

"Yes, but unfortunately I cannot play it. Carol has taught me a few
chords, but I have no music."

"Short is the man to sing," Captain Stevenson vouchsafes.

Eleanor seizes the instrument, and holds it out to him with a winning
smile.

"Do give us one little song!" she pleads.

He takes the guitar with a kind look from his exquisite brown eyes, and
strokes the strings, it seems so gently, that they whisper like the
wind in the trees.

"What will you have?"

Eleanor leans forward with her chin between her hands, gazing at him
intently.

"Anything you like."

"This road," says Captain Stevenson, leaning over the verandah, "is the
road to Mandalay. It seems impregnated with the spirit of Rudyard
Kipling."

"That shall be the song," says Major Short.

Captain Stevenson half sits on the balustrade, with the terrier beside
him gazing up wistfully into his eyes. Eleanor retains her intent
attitude, as a voice more beautiful and mellow than any she has ever
heard swells out on the hot air.

Eleanor is moved almost to tears by the magnetism of that wonderful
sound, thrilling her very being, for she is highly emotional.

The tune is soft, and the well-known words to the familiar melody take
pathos from their rough uncultured sentiment.

She remembers once hearing a man recite the words at a musical "At
home."

People had cried then; they knew not why, save that his elocution was
exquisite, and he breathed it in an undertone:

By the old Moulmein Pajoda lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burmah girl a-setting, and I know she thinks o' me,
For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldiers, come you back to Mandalay."

Elean