shawl, collar, and gloves, as a turn of the road brought them in sight of the cantonments and a patrol of the 5th Cavalry under a Duffodar riding slowly along; and on their drawing a little nearer her father's house prudence on Rose's part led her to suggest that Denzil should leave her.

"Good-bye till to-morrow-you will call and see us, of course," said she, as he alighted from the phaeton; "dear Denzil," she added, her eyes beaming with their usual witchery and waggery the while, "have we not enjoyed the band to-day?"

He knew not what he replied as she drove off and once or twice turned to kiss her hand to him, while lingeringly and with his heart swelling with all that had passed, he turned from the Kohistan road towards his somewhat squalid quarters in the old Afghan fort.

The secret understanding between them seemed to be growing deeper! What was to be the sequel, and what would the General say? But, as yet, prudence had suggested neither one idea nor the other to Denzil.

It was well for him, as after mess, he lay on his charpoy, or camp-bed, indulging in a quiet cigar and plunged in happy reverie, dreaming over all the events of that delightful drive by the Lake of Istaliff, that he did not overhear a few words of a conversation regarding him, and taking place at

that precise time in a corner of General Trecarrel's drawing-room.

"Take care, Rose," Mabel was saying; "I have heard of your solitary drive to-day from Polwhele, though papa has not a drive in defiance of the dreadfully disturbed state of the people hereabout-nearly all in insurrection, in fact. Mr. Devereaux is only a very junior subaltern, and the Civil Service are scarce enough up here certainly; but remember that cloudy story about his family which we heard at Porthellick."

"I care not," replied Rose, looking up from a fauteuil on which she was languidly reclining, her whole occupation being the opening and shutting of a beautiful fan given to her by some forgotten sub of Sale's Light Infantry; "the poor fellow loves

"Yes so I shan't betray his home secret, if there is one."

Yet you would betray himself?"

"Don't say so, Mab?"

"Why?"

"It sounds so horrid."

"But when Audley Trevelyan-the heir to a peerage comes

"Audley seems to find attraction enough in Bombay," said Rose, with an air of pique; "so please

VOL. II.

G

attend to Waller and his long fair whiskers, my dear sister, I am quite able to take care of myself. Besides, Mab, this lad Devereaux is only one among many."

"But to him you may be one-the one-one only Rose."

"I know it," was the pitiless reply.

CHAPTER IX.

ADVENTURE IN CABUL.

To his intense mortification, regimental duty detained Denzil in the cantonments all the following day, thus precluding his visiting the General's house at the time he intended; but as a natural sequence to their pleasant little airing by the shores of the Lake of Istaliff, it occurred to him that at their next interview he must beg Rose Trecarrel's acceptance of some suitable love-token; and for this purpose he resolved to visit the great bazaar while it was yet safe for a European to traverse the streets of the Shah's capital, as the dreaded Ackbar Khan was not as yet known to be within its walls at that precise juncture; and evening parade being over, he hastened along the road to the Kohistan gate, and turning to the left after entering it, proceeded at once towards the Char Chouk, the aforesaid great bazaar, with his mind intent on his proposed purchase, and so full of the tender memories of yesterday, that he was quite oblivious of the manner in

which the armed Afghans, the red-capped Kussilbashes, and others who were thronging the narrow thoroughfares in unwonted numbers, regarded him; how they scowled ominously, handled their weapons, and muttered curses under their thick flowing mustaches.

He was thinking only of Rose, when there were those hovering about him who required but the precept, or example, of one bolder or more cruel than the rest, to cut him to pieces and elevate his head on some conspicuous pole in the market-place; for the Afghans almost invariably slice off the heads of those they slay.

It never occurred to him, that in her own laughing way, her manner yesterday had been somewhat forward, over-confident, or "flirtatious" as Polwhele would have phrased it. He had but one idea and conviction; "How fond she is of me?" and thus a few gold pieces which he had once intended to invest in a present for his mother-alas! he knew not all that had happened at home-or for Sybil, his gentle sister, were now to be spent in a suitable love-gift for Rose Trecarrel.

"She loves me-and she is so beautiful! he whispered to himself again and again; for there is much truth in the old Roman maxim, that "what we wish should be, we readily believe;" and what