on him considerably; there was a great deal too much about Mrs. George Holroyd. Nevertheless he received a glowing description of his niece, in which description Belle painted. herself as Betty's adviser, sister, and benefactress, and then he put one or two somewhat sharp questions-questions are a natural weapon in malignant hands.

"I remember your father," he said: "he died when I was a youngster. I suppose you were quite an infant at that time." "Quite," she returned somewhat sharply.

"Betty is nineteen," he continued; "she has two hundred a year; pray, what becomes of her income?"

"I cannot tell," faltered Belle. "My mother knows" (she truly did).

"And I gather that she is at Noone, acting as your mother's sick nurse?"

"She lives with mamma," replied Belle reddening.

“Ha-Hum!” rubbing his chin reflectively. Then putting on his glasses, and staring round, "I should not have known this house."

"No, I suppose not," complacently. "Pray, what do you think of my room?"

"Shall I really tell you what I think. Eh, honestly and without humbug?"

"Please do," prepared for some charming compliment.

"I think it just like a bazaar, with all these pictures, and ribbons, and cushions, and fans. I cannot help looking for the tickets, and expecting to hear you ask me to put into a raffle."

"Mr. Redmond," exclaimed Belle, intensely affronted." It is very evident that you have not been in England for some years, and possibly then you may not have been in a drawing-room, or else I believe you are as great a bear as old Brian."

"To be sure I am," he returned with a delighted laugh. "I have often regretted the loss I have been to the diplomatic service! Don't you know that manners run in our family.” "The want of them you mean," indignantly. "This room is got up in the very latest fashion."

"Like its mistress?" with a cool, deliberate stare. "Yes. We attempt to be civilised!"

A

"And of course I know that I am miserably behindhand. poor old mofussilite! Pray what's that thing?" pointing to

Mossoo," who was coiled up in a chair. "Animal, vegetable,

or mineral?"

"It's my dog-a thoroughbred French poodle. I brought him with me."

"The latest fashion in poodles-I suppose. Eh?" focussing "Mossoo" with his glass. "I wonder what the dogs out here will take him for. How do you like India?"

"Extremely I don't wish ever to go home; I hope I shall live and die out here!"

"You have only been out five weeks; wait till you have been out for five years, and you have heard the brain fever bird, and felt the hot winds, and seen a few snakes and scorpions! India is not a country; it is a climate.”

"Thank you! I am not afraid of your horrors: I shall go to the hills, and I intend to enjoy myself in hills and plains, and to like India immensely. I suppose you were out here long before the Mutiny?"

"The Mutiny! Good gracious, my dear madam," exclaimed her visitor (whose one vulnerable point happened to be his age, and flattered himself that he did not look a day older than forty). "For what do you take me? Long before the Mutiny! Why I have only twenty-seven years' service."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I did not know; but I daresay climate tells on people-you look old." "Thank you," he responded quickly. "I see that you understand the art of delicate flattery. Ah!" as a note was handed to her. "You have already begun to experience the real curse of India-chits, yes mam-chits are the curse of India, and I will leave you to enjoy your epistle alone; it is sure to be asking for something; your company at a dull dinner; the loan of a pattern, or of a saddle; or a bottle of wine; or a dose of medicine!"

"Not at all," rejoined Belle, casting her eyes over it. "It is from Mr. Lovelace, sending snipe, and asking me to play tennis. I am afraid you take a gloomy view of life, and people in general."

"I take a gloomy view of some people, I must confess," and then he got up rather abruptly and made his adieux, and Belle had a disagreeable consciousness that she had failed to make a good impression. Visions of diamonds, and ponies, faded back

into cloudland, and she laughed aloud, as she pictured herself daring to pat this gruff out-spoken connection on the head, much less to stroke his severe, sarcastic-looking face! As he whirled away, he remarked to his hot-tempered pony: "She is like you Judy, a Tartar, if ever there was one! She will want a tight curb and a strong hand over her. Poor Holroyd. Unfortunate devil!"

Belle's other visitors were more appreciative, and they came, all the ladies in the station, in their latest Europe bonnets, and all the inquisitive young men, in their neatest ties and boots, and they were charmed with the bride-the latter especially. She had such splendid eyes, and so much to say for herself, and was so unaffected and agreeable. Why Mrs. Calvert and Miss Gay had not been half loud enough in her praises! They had not prepared them for such an acquisition to Mangobad. True, when one or two enthusiastic subalterns at the Club had been eloquent on the subject of the lady's charms of person and manner, in the hearing of the Collector, he had merely grunted, and shrugged his shoulders, and called for a glass of " Kummel," but he was a regular old Diogenes, and no one minded his opinion, excepting on such matters as horses, whist, and wine.

Belle's letters home were full of her delightful new life, and her supreme happiness, and Mrs. Redmond read them to her friends in a voice that shook with emotion. Her plans had succeeded far beyond her most sanguine hopes. In spite of what the Bible said, the wicked did prosper! After all, she had only done evil that good might come, and good had come. She did not fail to impart Belle's effusions to Betty-who listened with a white but smiling face-to Maria, and to Miss Dopping; accounts of tiffin parties, dinners and dances, given for her as a bride, and what she had worn, and how her dress had fitted, and who had taken her in, and what people had said; also minute descriptions of her legion of servants, her house, her piano, her ponies, and her plate (a splendid and enlarged edition of the above was soon in circulation in the village), but there was scarcely an allusion to her lord and master. He was constantly on duty; he seemed to have an immensity to do; he looked ill, and had quite lost his spirits; he took no care of himself, and she intended to carry him off to some gay hill station for a complete change.

It was not Belle's custom to talk of anything that was near her heart," explained her mother. "She is extremely anxious about him, I can see, but her feelings are not on the surface."

Nor anywhere else," muttered Miss Dopping; then aloud: "It strikes me that she seems a good deal more anxious about getting the creases out of her velvet dress! However, I am glad you are pleased. If she was my daughter, I'd rather hear less about her clothes and more about her husband."

Belle's triumphs had not been much over-rated. She was quite the latest novelty, and the acknowledged beauty of the station. Young men were proud to be her partners in ball-room or tennis-court. She was vivacious, amusing and accomplished; and her pretty dresses and her pretty speeches disarmed her would-be rivals. She took the place by storm as on board the Nankin, and no entertainment was complete without Mrs. Holroyd! She acted, she sang at penny readings, she composed people's fancy dresses, she played the harmonium in church, and was secretary to the tennis club. In fact, as old Sally Dopping would have said, "She had a finger in every pie." Her restless spirit, and excitable temperament, supplied her with sufficient energy to revolve in one untiring whirl from morn till midnight, She was always en course. She drove to the club before breakfast to read the papers and gossip; early in the afternoon she went forth again, regardless of the sun, a syce holding an umbrella over her head, and "Mossoo" sitting sedately in the cart beside her, to tiffin parties, teas or tennis; then there were rehearsals for concerts, theatricals, choir practice, moonlight picnics and balls. For these latter Belle filled in her programme (in ink) days previously.

Home was the place where she slept, and breakfasted, and sometimes dined, but home was not where she "lived" in the true sense of the word. In it she expected no happiness for herself, and made none for others. Pleasure was her god, and to this she carried the sacrifice of her life. With constant gaiety came an incessant hunger, a craving for more. Not content with Mangobad, she sighed for other fields to conquer; she went to this station, and to that, for the annual "Week," to Lucknow for the cup-races, to Allahabad for balls, bearing her husband in her train. Gay, vivacious, pretty, a born actress, a matchless

dancer, Belle, as she playfully expressed it, "took" extremely well. George gratified all her whims, patiently hung about ballroom doors till the early hours of the morning, carried her wraps, cashed her cheques, went her messages, and gave her freely and liberally of everything-except his company. For the first time in her existence, Belle was absolutely contented. This really was life-a life well worth living, a glorious realisation of all her hopes. But would it last?

CHAPTER XXVI.

MRS. HOLROYD DESIRES TO LOOK INTO THE PAST.

He has paid dear, very dear for his whistle.

THIS gay, butterfly life was not permanent! Before six months had passed, Mrs. Holroyd had ceased to be the joy and delight of the station. Before a year had elapsed, she had figuratively thrust a torch into her own roof tree, and set Mangobad in a blaze.

The honeymoon had barely waned, before George Holroyd discovered that he was married to an insanely jealous woman, with an ungovernable temper, and an untrammelled tongue, He had seen her tear an ill-fitting dress to shreds with the gestures of a maniac, he had seen her strike her ayah, and stamp at himself. True, she had subsequently offered a rupee to the ayah, and sobs and apologies to him, and that these outbreaks were always followed by scenes almost equally tryingfits of hysterical remorse, but the future looked gloomy, very gloomy. Belle was not in love with her husband, brave, handsome and honest as he was. She would have (privately) jeered at the idea. She had a vague notion that she had been in love once-years ago that she was constant to a memory"-a gross mental deception; her first love was with her still, and confronted her daily in the glass. Were the choice given to her to be torn from her husband or "Mossoo," it would not have been "Mossoo." But he was a good-looking, presentable appendage, whose polo playing and hurdle racing reflected credit on herself. Since his marriage he had given up tennis and dancing, and to this she made no objection, for it kept him