How cordially
some of them will hate her! I anticipate great fun in looking on. I am
out of all that sort of thing myself."

"That is news to me, Norah; I think you are just as fond of a quiet
flirtation as you used to be."

"Just of a very little one, Jim; fortunately not more. So I can look
on complacently; but even I have suffered. Why, for weeks not a day has
passed without young Richards dropping in for a chat, and when he came
in yesterday he could talk about nothing but Miss Hannay, until I shut
him up by telling him it was extremely bad form to talk to one lady
about another. The boy colored up till I almost laughed in his face; in
fact, I believe I did laugh."

"That I will warrant you did, Norah."

"I could not help it, especially when he assured me he was perfectly
serious about Miss Hannay."

"You did not encourage him, I hope, Norah."

"No; I told him the Colonel set his face against married subalterns, and
that he would injure himself seriously in his profession if he were to
think of such a thing, and as I knew he had nothing but his pay, that
would be fatal to him."

Captain Doolan went off into a burst of laughter.

"And he took it all in, Norah? He did not see that you were humbugging
him altogether?"

"Not a bit of it. They are very amusing, these boys, Jim. I was really
quite sorry for Richards, but I told him he would get over it in time,
for as far as I could learn you had been just as bad thirty-three times
before I finally took pity on you, and that I only did it then because
you were wearing away with your troubles. I advised him to put the best
face he could on it, for that Miss Hannay would be the last person to be
pleased, if he were to be going about with a face as long as if he had
just come from his aunt's funeral."

The race meeting came off three weeks after Miss Hannay arrived at
Cawnpore. She had been to several dinners and parties by this time, and
began to know most of the regular residents.

The races served as an excuse for people to come in from all the
stations round. Men came over from Lucknow, Agra, and Allahabad, and
from many a little outlying station; every bungalow in the cantonment
was filled with guests, and tents were erected for the accommodation of
the overflow.

Several of the officers of the 103d had horses and ponies entered in the
various races. There was to be a dance at the club on the evening of the
second day of the races, and a garden party at