to stifle nor to analyze, and wholly forgetting what had
brought him to the spot, he turned and joined his brother,
who, at a short distance, stood awaiting his return.




CHAPTER IV.

At the garrison mess table that evening the occurrences
of the day naturally formed a chief topic of conversation;
and a variety of conjectures, more or less probable,
regarding the American lady, were hazarded by the officers,
to some of whom she had become an object of curiosity,
as she had to others of interest. This conversation,
necessarily 'parenthesed' with much extraneous matter,
in the nature of rapid demands for solids and liquids,
during the interesting period devoted to the process of
mastication, finally assumed a more regular character
when the cloth had been removed, and the attendants
retired.

"If a am at all a joodge of pheesogs, and a flatter meself
a am," said a raw-boned Scotch Captain of Grenadiers,
measuring six feet two in his stockings, "yon geerl has
a bit of the deevil in her ee, therefor, me lads, tak
heed that nane o' ye lose yer heerts to her."

"Why not, Cranstoun?" asked a young officer.