than two tunes.

Further, there would appear sporadically in Doppersdorp at this time
certain warlike individuals, arrayed in nondescript uniform, high boots,
and very bright spars, eke helmet, immaculately white. These warriors
would swagger around, tapping the boots aforesaid with a chowrie--a
weapon which, for some occult reason, they much affected--and giving out
darkly that they were recruiting for native levies, of which they were
to have command when a sufficient number of recruits had been raised.
In some few instances these "colonels," as the misanthropic Emerson
termed them, were _bond fide_, and able to produce credentials at the
public offices empowering them to receive rations and assistance in the
furtherance of their plans. Of such, the above misanthrope would
predict that, the next time they were heard of would be in connection
with "cooking" pay-sheets, or something of the kind. And, alas! for the
frailty of human nature, ministering to the triumphant laughter of the
cynic, in one or two such instances Emerson's sardonic predictions were
fulfilled.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Turning from public affairs to those of private persons, Mona Ridsdale's
behaviour, as regarded a certain one of such private persons, had
become, all things considered, strange. We say "all things considered"
advisedly, because the change in her demeanour was unaccountable, to say
the least of it. The sweet, subtle charm of those days of
convalescence, seemed, with the accomplishment of that convalescence, to
come to an abrupt termination. Her patient fairly off her hands, Mona
seemed to encase herself with a cold reserve, as in a shell. Had she
mistaken her feelings after all? Had she given herself away too much,
and now desired to draw back before it was too late? Her behaviour
puzzled those around her. Suffield noticed it, but like a wise man held
his tongue. His wife noticed it, and being a woman, did not hold, hers.
She remonstrated, giving her relative what she termed a little bit of
her mind--result, anger, and a lively passage of arms.

There was one whom this behaviour did not puzzle, and that was Roden
Musgrave himself. To him it afforded no surprise; for it was precisely
such as might have been expected. The only thing that did surprise him
was that he himself should have been temporarily lulled into believing
in, not so much the genuineness, as the durabil