ng than those of the
sergeant--were entertaining enough to the smaller audience in the bar.
Even 'Melia, the maid-servant of tender years, would share in the social
enjoyment, as knitting in hand she stole furtively in from the kitchen
and listened unreproved to the interesting discourse. Sometimes it might
happen that the Pikes had been able to drive over in a borrowed
conveyance on a winter afternoon; in such case a cosy supper in the snug
little bar, after the ordinary company had departed, would take the place
of tea. The Pikes, in their turn, were always hospitably inclined
whenever Stephen Dale, his wife, or daughter, or all of them together,
might look in upon them of a Sunday after Mass.

The acquaintance, thus ripened, was destined to influence Penny's future
beyond any anticipation on the part of either family. It fell out on one
occasion that Mrs. Pike was unable to accompany the sergeant on a visit
to the Dales, and to serve as a companion on the walk he brought with him
a fellow-sergeant, much younger, whom he introduced to the Dales as "my
particular chum--Sergeant Spence." The newcomer was a decidedly
handsome, strapping young soldier, with a merry dark eye, rendered still
more striking by his fair hair and tawny moustache. His skin would have
been fair, too, had it not undergone a process of bronzing under tropical
suns. He could not have been thirty, and looked even younger. He proved
also to be unmarried; a fact playfully made known by his companion.
"Arthur's never met with a missus to suit him since he got his stripes,"
he said laughing, as they sat at supper; "he's like me--a bit particular
in that respect." Spence merely greeted the remark with a quiet smile.
He seemed a silent young fellow, with a manner superior to his
companion's.

Perhaps it was a want of circumspection on the part of Stephen Dale that
he should welcome a stranger, and a soldier, too, as a guest at his
family meal. But it was his favorite axiom that a sergeant might not be
looked down upon "like as if he was a common Tom, Dick, or Harry in the
ranks"; so that his hospitality was to be expected in the present
instance. Had either anxious parent had the slightest fear of the
attractive sergeant's pleasing qualities proving too strong for Penny's
"proper pride," their welcome would have been less genuine; but they were
altogether without suspicion. Yet, as to Penny herself, it must have
been evident from the first that