"Yes," she replied, as the tears brimmed over in her lovely eyes,
"it is. I am a simple soldier's child, but, oh, I can run so
beautifully--through ever so many volumes, and lots of editions. In
fact," she added, confidentially, "I don't see why I should stop at
all, do you? EMILY _must_ marry me. He can't marry OLIVE, because
Dame Nature put in _her_ eyes with a dirty finger. Ugh! I've got
blue eyes."

"But," retorted the Colonel, quickly, "shall you never quarrel?"

"Oh yes," answered MIGNON, "there will come a rift in the hitherto
perfect lute of our friendship (the rift's name will be DARKEY), but
we shall manage to bridge it over--at least TOM RUM SUMMER says so."
Here EMILY broke in. He could stand it no longer. "Dash it, you know,
this is wewry extwraowrdinawry, wewry extwraowrdinawry indeed," he
observed; "You'wre a most wremawrkable young woman, you know."

A shout of laughter followed this remark, and in the fog of
tobacco-smoke Colonel PURSER could be dimly seen draining a magnum
of champagne.

CHAPTER IV.

"Hey diddle, diddle."
--_Songs and Romances_.

Everything fell out exactly as MIGNON prophesied. But if you think
that you've come to the end of MIGNON, I can only say you're very much
astray, or as EMILY, with his smooth silky voice, and his smoother
silkier manners, would have said, "You'wre wewry much astwray." See my