red a special pleader--yet it was
all of no use."

"Deliberating about marriage!" said the Major, "after leaving her
father and lover for you! What gnat can she be straining at, after
swallowing a camel of such magnitude?"

"A piece of female Quixotry," returned Owen. "She says she can't think
of such selfishness as being comfortably married herself, while
Carlota is so unhappy, and her fate so unsettled." Here he made a
significant pause; but my grandfather was immovably silent, only
glancing nervously at him, and smoking very hard.

"In fact, she protests she won't hear of marrying me, till you have
settled when you will marry Carlota."

"Marry Carlota!" gasped the Major in an agonised whisper.

"Why, you don't mean to say you're not going to marry her!" exclaimed
the Ensign, throwing a vast quantity of surprise into his expressive
countenance.

"Why--why, what should I marry her for?" stammered the Major.

"Oh, Lord!" said Garry, "here will be pleasant news for her! Curse me
if I break it to her."

"But really now, Frank," the Major repeated--"marriage, you know--why,
I never thought of such a thing."

"You're the only person that hasn't, then," rejoined Owen. "Why, what
can the garrison think, after the way you smuggled her in; what can
she herself think, after all your attentions?"

"Attentions, my dear boy;--the merest civility."

"Oh,--ah! 'twas civility, I suppose, to squeeze her hand in the inn at
Algeciras, in the way she told Juana of--and heaven knows what else
you may have done during the flight. Juana is outrageous against
you--actually called you a vile deceiver; but Carlota's feeling is
more of sorrow than of anger. She is persuaded that nothing but your
ignorance of Spanish has prevented your tongue from confirming what
your looks have so faithfully promised. I was really quite affected
to-day at the appealing look she cast on me after you left the room;
she evidently expected me to communicate her destiny."

My grandfather smoked hard.

"Lots of fellows would give their ears for such a wife," pursued the
Ensign. "Lovelace, the Governor's aide-de-camp, bribed the waiter of
the hotel to lend him his apron to-day, at dinner, that he might come
in and look at her--swears she's a splendid woman, and that he'd run
away with such another to-morrow."

Still my grandfather smoked hard, but said nothing, though there was a
slight gleam of pride in his countenance.

"Poor thing!" sighed Garry.