oss, and said, 'Don't bother
any more about it; but keep straight, my boy, if you can, for your
people's sake.' I'm sadly given to going crooked, sir, but if anything
could make a fellow----"

Mr. George got no further in his sentence, but the Major seemed to
understand what he meant, for he spoke very kindly to him, and they left
me for a bit and walked up and down the verandah together. Just before
Mr. George left, I heard him say, "Have you heard anything of Mrs.
Vandaleur?"

"I wrote to her, in the best fashion that I could," said Major Buller.
"But there's no breaking rough news gently, Abercrombie. I ought to hear
from her soon."

But he never did hear from her. My poor mother had fled from the cholera
only to fall a victim to fever. The news of my father's death was, I
believe, the immediate cause of the relapse in which she died.

And so I became an orphan.

Shortly afterwards the regiment was ordered home, and the Bullers took
me with them.

CHAPTER IV.

SALES--MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE--MRS. MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH THE BRIDE--MRS.
MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH EVERYBODY--MRS. MINCHIN IS RECONCILED--THE VOYAGE
HOME--A DEATH ON BOARD.

I only remember a little of our voyage home in the troop-ship, but I
have heard so much of it, from the elder Buller girls and the ladies of
the regiment, that I seem quite familiar with all that happened; and I
hardly know now what I remember myself, and what has been recalled or
suggested to me by hearing the other ladies talk.

There was no lack of subjects for talk when the news came that the
regiment was ordered home. As Aunt Theresa repeatedly remarked, "There
are a great many things to be considered." And she considered them all
day long--by word of mouth.

The Colonel (that is, the new Colonel)--he had just returned from leave
in the hills--and his wife behaved rather shabbily, it was thought.
"But," as Mrs. Minchin said, "what could you expect? They say she was
the daughter of a wholesale draper in the City. And trade in the blood
always peeps out." We knew for certain that before there was a word said
about the regiment going home, it had been settled that the Colonel's
wife should go to England, where her daughters were being educated, and
take the two youngest children with her. Her passage in the mail-steamer
was all but taken, if not quite. And then, when they heard of the
troop-ship, she stayed to go home in that. "Money can be no object to
them," said Mrs. M