probability if questioned.

"However, I fancy the worst of the fighting will be over by the
time we get there. It seems almost certain that it will be so, if
Delhi is captured and Lucknow relieved. The Sepoys thought that
they had the game entirely in their hands, and that they would
sweep us right out of India almost without resistance. They have
failed, and when they see that every day their chances of success
diminish, their resistance will grow fainter.

"I expect that we shall have many long marches, a great many
skirmishes, and perhaps two or three hard fights; but I have not a
shadow of fear of a single reverse. We are going out at the best
time of year, and with cool weather and hard exercise there will be
little danger of fevers; therefore the chances are very strongly in
favour of my returning safe and sound. It may take a couple of
years to stamp it all out, but at the end of that time I hope to
return here for good.

"I shall find you a good deal more altered, Miss Greendale, than
you will find me. You will have become a dignified young lady. I
shall be only a little older and a little browner. You see, I have
never been stationed in India since I joined, for the regiment had
only just come home, and I am looking forward with pleasurable
anticipation to seeing it. Ordinary life there in a hot cantonment
must be pretty dull, though, from what I hear, people enjoy it much
more than you would think possible. But at a time like the present
it will be full of interest and excitement."

"You will write to us sometimes, I hope," Sir John said, when