of the officers or not. If Captain Lee is
with the regiment, I know he would take care of it for her."

So they plunged into another regiment, and Rachel decided that nothing
was so wearisome as to hear triflers talk shop.

There was no opportunity of calling Fanny to order after dinner, for
she went off on her progress to all the seven cribs, and was only just
returning from them when the gentlemen came in, and then she made room
for the younger beside her on the sofa, saying, "Now, Alick, I do so
want to hear about poor, dear little Bessie;" and they began so low and
confidentially, that Rachel wondered if her alarms wore to be transfered
from the bearded colonel to the dapper boy, or if, in very truth,
she must deem poor Fanny a general coquette. Besides, a man must be
contemptible who wore gloves at so small a party, when she did not.

She had been whiling away the time of Fanny's absence by looking over
the books on the table, and she did not regard the present company
sufficiently to desist on their account. Colonel Keith began to turn
over some numbers of the "Traveller" that lay near him, and presently
looked up, and said, "Do you know who is the writer of this?"

"What is it? Ah! one of the Invalid's essays. They strike every one; but
I fancy the authorship is a great secret."

"You do not know it?"

"No, I wish I did. Which of them are you reading? 'Country Walks.' That
is not one that I care about, it is a mere hash of old recollections;
but there are some very sensible and superior ones, so that I have heard
it sometimes doubted whether they are man's or woman's writing. For my
part, I think them too earnest to be a man's; men always play with their
subject."

"Oh, yes," said Fanny, "I am sure only a lady could have written
anything so sweet as that about flowers in a sick-room; it so put me in
mind of the lovely flowers you used to bring me one at a time, when I
was ill at Cape Town."

There was no more sense to be had after those three once fell upon their
reminiscences.

That night, after having betrayed her wakefulness by a movement in her
bed, Alison Williams heard her sister's voice, low and steady, saying,
"Ailie, dear, be it what it may, guessing is worse than certainty."

"Oh, Ermine, I hoped--I know nothing--I have nothing to tell."

"You dread something," said Ermine; "you have been striving for
unconcern all the evening, my poor dear, but surely you know, Ailie,
that nothing is so b