r man altogether. I would not say it to any one but
yourself; you're a sort of sentimental person in a wholesale way;
you'll understand. Eh, what? You'll understand!" He threw out his chest;
breathed fully. "I'm a new man, I'm telling you. I wonder where the eyes
of you fellows were?"

Even yet Gilian did not grudge Young Islay the elation that was so
manifest.

"You understand, we did not see much of her in these parts lately, much
more than yourself. I have not seen her myself since she returned. Has
she changed much?"

"Much!" exclaimed Young Islay, laughing. "My son! she is not the girl I
knew at all. When I went in there--into the room up, there you know, I
was--I was--baffled to know her. I think I expected to see the same girl
I had--I had--you mind, brought the boat out to, the same loose hair,
the same--you know, I never expected to see a princess in Maam. A
princess, mind you, and she looked all the more that because her uncle
met me at the stair-foot as I was going in. A sour old scamp yon! He was
teasing out his beard, and, 'A nice piece there,' said he, nodding at
the door, 'and I'm sure her father would be glad to have her off his
hands.' I laughed and----"

"I would have struck him on the jaw," said Gilian with great heat.

"Oh!" said Young Islay, astonishment in his voice. He said no more for a
little. Then, "I was not very well pleased myself with the remark when
I went into the room and saw the lady it referred to. You're not--you're
not chief in that quarter, are you?"

"Chief!" repeated Gilian. "You're ahead of me even in seeing the lady."

"Oh well, that's all right," said Young Islay, seemingly relieved. "Look
here; I'm gone, that's the long and the short of it! I'm seeing a week
or two of hard work before me convincing her ladyship that a young
ensign in a marching regiment is maybe worth her smiling on."

Gilian turned cold with apprehension. This, indeed, was a revelation of
love-making in garrison fashion.

"You don't know the girl at all," he said.

"So much the better," said Young Islay; "that means that she does not
know me, and that's all the better start for me, perhaps. It's a great
advantage, for I've noticed that they're all the most interested--the
sex of them--in a novelty. I have a better chance than the best man in
these parts, that has been under her eye all the time I was away. I'll
have stiff work, perhaps, but I want her, and between ourselves, and not
to make a brag