ok of the lady in reply to this modest proposal again
overpowered me, and I sank back in my bed exhausted with laughter,--an
emotion which I was forced to subdue as well as I might on beholding the
angry countenance with which the lady regarded me.

"I say, Burke," cried the captain, "let me present you to my sister,
Miss Anna Maria Bubbleton."

A very dry recognition on Miss Anna Maria's part replied to the effort
I made to salute her; and as she turned on her heel, she said to her
brother, "Breakfast's ready," and left the room.

Bubbleton jumped up at this, rubbed his mouth pleasantly with his hand,
smacked his lips; and then dropping his voice to a whisper, muttered,
"Excuse me, Tom; but if I have a weakness it is for Yarmouth bloaters,
and anchovy toast, milk chocolate, marmalade, hot rolls, and reindeer
tongue, with a very small glass of pure white brandy as a qualifier." So
saying, he whisked about and made his exit.

While my host was thus occupied, I was visited by the regimental
surgeon, who informed me that my illness had now been of some weeks'
duration; severe brain fever, with various attending evils, and a broken
arm, being the happy results of my evening's adventure at the Parliament
House.

"Bubbleton is an old friend of yours," continued the doctor. And then,
without giving me time to reply, added, "Capital fellow,--no better; a
little given to the miraculous, eh? but nothing worse."

"Why, he does indeed seem to have a strong vein for fiction," said I,
half timidly.

"Bless your heart, he never ceases. His world is an ideal thing, fall
of impossible people and events, where he has lived at least some
centuries, enjoying the intimacies of princes, statesmen, poets, and
warriors. He has, in his own estimation, unlimited wealth and unbounded
resources, the want of which he is never convinced of till pressed for
five shillings to buy his dinner."

"And his sister," said I; "what of her?"

"Just as strange a character in the opposite direction. She is as matter
of fact as he is imaginative. To all his flights she as resolutely
enters a dissentient; and he never inflates his balloon of miracles
without her stepping forward to punch a hole in it. But here they come."

"I say. Pepper, how goes your patient? Spare no pains, old fellow,--no
expense; only get him round. I've left a cheque for you for five hundred
in the next room. This is no regimental case; come, come! it 's my way,
and I insist upo