It was Saturday night. The streets of East Burgen were rather crowded,
and Jem Agar--with elbows well in and the whip at the regulation angle
across old Lasher's face, who could not help squinting at the pendant
thong--shouted to the country-folk in a new voice of mighty deep
register.

He carried his boyish head stiffly, and had for ever discarded a
turn-down collar. At first he kept old Lasher at a respectful distance,
asking in a somewhat curt and business-like manner after the stables.
Then gradually, as they bowled along the country road in the familiar
hush of an April evening, he thawed, and proceeded to vouchsafe to that
steady coachman a series of very interesting details of military matters
in general and the Indian army in particular.

"Well, I'm sure, Mas--sir," opined Mr. Lasher at length; "if there's any
one as has got into his right rut, so to speak, in this world, it's you.
I always said you was a born soldier."

"Ah--then you've heard that I've got my commission?" inquired Jem airily,
as if he had had many such in bygone years.

"Oh yes, sir! Miss Dora it was that told me."

Somehow this caused a little silence.

Truth to tell, Dora had lost her rank as the most beautiful and
accomplished maiden in Christendom. This situation was at that moment
occupied by a young person hight Evelina Louisa Barmond, sister to Billy
Barmond of the Hundred and second, a veteran fellow-soldier and comrade