go on.

'Much?' she asked.

'I can't exactly say. And the strange part of it is that he never
tells us who the woman is. Nobody knows at all.'

'He will tell, of course?' said Anne, in the remote tone of a person
with whose sex such matters had no connexion whatever.

Loveday shook his head, and the tete-a-tete was put an end to by a
burst of singing from one of the sergeants, who was followed at the
end of his song by others, each giving a ditty in his turn; the
singer standing up in front of the table, stretching his chin well
into the air, as though to abstract every possible wrinkle from his
throat, and then plunging into the melody. When this was over one
of the foreign hussars--the genteel German of Miller Loveday's
description, who called himself a Hungarian, and in reality belonged
to no definite country--performed at Trumpet-major Loveday's request
the series of wild motions that he denominated his national dance,
that Anne might see what it was like. Miss Garland was the flower
of the whole company; the soldiers one and all, foreign and English,
seemed to be quite charmed by her presence, as indeed they well
might be, considering how seldom they came into the society of such
as she.

Anne and her mother were just thinking of retiring to their own
dwelling when Sergeant Stanner of the --th Foot, who was recruiting
at Budmouth, began a satirical song:--