e or so discreet, found themselves clapped into French
prisons.

Returning to the tranquillity of Bath, things resumed their normal
course. Sir Jasper nursed his gout (changing his opinion of French
cooking, to which he attributed a fresh attack) and the girls picked
up the threads they had temporarily dropped.

Always responsive to her environment, Lola expanded quickly in the
sympathetic atmosphere of the Nicolls household. Before long,
Montrose, with its "blue Scotch Calvinism," was but a memory. Instead
of being snubbed and scolded, she was petted and encouraged. As a
result, she grew cheerful and vivacious, full of high spirits and
laughter. Perhaps because of her mother's Spanish blood, she matured
early. At sixteen she was a woman. A remarkably attractive one, too,
giving--with her raven tresses, long-lashed violet eyes, and graceful
figure--promise of the ripe beauty for which she was afterwards to be
distinguished throughout two hemispheres. Of a romantic disposition,
she, naturally enough, had her _affaires_. Several of them, as it
happened. One of them was with an usher, who had slipped amorous
missives into her prayer-book. Greatly daring, he followed this up by
bearding Sir Jasper in his den and asking permission to "pay his
addresses" to his ward. The warrior's response was unconciliatory.
Still, he could not be angry when, on being challenged, the girl
laughed at him.

"Egad!" he declared. "But, before long, Miss, you'll be setting all
the men by the ears."

Prophetic words.

IV

During the interval that elapsed since they last met, Mrs. Craigie had
troubled herself very little about the child she had sent to England.
When, however, she received her portrait from Sir Jasper, together
with a glowing description of her attractiveness and charm, the
situation assumed a fresh aspect. Lola, she felt, had become an asset,
instead of an anxiety; and, as such, must make a "good" marriage. Bath
swarmed with detrimentals, and there was a risk of a pretty girl,
bereft of a mother's watchful care, being snapped up by one of them.
Possibly, a younger son, without a penny with which to bless himself.
A shuddering prospect for an ambitious mother. Obviously, therefore,
the thing to do was to get her daughter out to India and marry her off
to a rich husband. The richer, the better.

Mrs. Craigie went to work in business-like fashion, and cast a
maternal eye over the "eligibles" she met at Government House. Th