"You must go and see with your own eyes," returned the young lady, authoritatively. "I insist on your going, and hereby engage myself to dance the first dance with you."

"Well-if any thing would tempt me, that would," said Peregrine; "the inducement is very strong."

"Then remember you are engaged to me-and keep my secret. I shall not forget, depend upon it." "How can you talk so, my dear," said Mrs. Sweetenham; "your spirits do get the better of you so."

Peregrine thought this too; but then the young lady was so pretty, that he would have pardoned her forwardness, if it had been twice as conspicuous as it was.

CHAPTER IX.

In which Peregrine Pultuney begins to forfeit the good Opinion of the Reader.

WHEN Peregrine returned home, after paying his visits, he found Julian Jenks waiting to see him. "My good fellow," exclaimed the latter young gentleman, in his most cordial manner, "I am so glad. to see your dear phiz again-upon my soul, I have been nearly hanging myself half-a-dozen times, since you took yourself away to Madras. I should have been here yesterday to see you, but I was on that confounded guard. Well! how are you?-not looking quite so rosy, as when we were on board the Hastings-but still not much like an Arracan victim. By the bye, Morgan and Cradock have both of them come back sick since you went away—both now on their way to England-pretty well this for one year-three subs on the shelf-what a confounded hole it must be."

"Don't talk about it," said Peregrine, shuddering-" don't talk about it, pray. What is going on at Dum-Dum?"

"Lots of guard, and parades never ending," returned Julian Jenks, shrugging his shoulders. "Practice, field-battery exercise, infantry drills (hang them), young captains waging war against old subalterns, dic and bother most interminable— new brooms sweeping clean,' until they run a chance of sweeping all comfort and pleasure out of Dum-Dum."

"Pleasant prospects," observed Peregrine.

66

Very," returned Mr. Jenks, "so pleasant, that I do not recommend you to thrust your head into it, sooner than you can help-glad as I shall be to see you again, I advise you to stay away as long as you can-though I suppose that your eminent services will soon be required, my good fellow, to mount guard, cut fuses, weigh out powder, and be wigged."

"I suppose they will," remarked Peregrine, "worse luck to it-and Dum-Dum is quite changed you say?"

Very nearly," returned Mr. Jenks, "few or none of the old set are there now. Clay has come down, however, again to head-quarters, and is talking about resigning the service. He is coming in to see you in a day or two, and wants you very much to play in a cricket match against the Calcutta club. He is married you know-of course, you do, for you

have seen his wife, I think. By the bye, when shall we see yours?"

66

Soon, I hope," said Peregrine Pultuney.

"I am glad of it—very glad,” said Mr. Jenks, "for your own sake at least, for I was reading somewhere, the other day, that,

"When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,

His best friends hear no more of him ;"

and I suppose that neither you nor I will prove exceptions to the rule. You don't know, I suppose, what money Mr. Poggleton left?" Peregrine shook his head.

"Neither do you expect, I suppose, to be able to support a wife on a second lieutenant's pay, at a halfbatta station, even although we have got full tentage now, and will come in for a company."

you

"Of course I do not," returned Peregrine, hastily, and then, as though anxious to change the subject, he added, "do you know Miss Sweetenham, Jenks?" "Yes," said Julian, "tolerably well-that is to

say, I have danced with her some half-dozen times, and met her twice at a burra-khana, and I believe that this is as much as most gentlemen can say they have seen of their wives before marriage."

"True!" returned Peregrine, smiling," and by this, I suppose, you mean to hint that you are thinking of taking Miss Sweetenham to wife."

"Bless my soul," cried Julian, "what strange fancy have you conceived about my marrying-I

can assure you, that I have as much thought of tak ing the deputy-governor to dry-nurse, as of doing the thing to which you allude. Miss Sweetenham is a very pretty girl indeed, though you don't think I know."

So,

"I don't think so," exclaimed Peregrine; "what put that in your head?"

"Your own avowal," returned Mr. Jenks; "I heard you say so yourself, some time before you went to sea, when we were talking about the Drawlincourts' wedding."

"Oh! that," cried Peregrine, "was when-I mean, before I was qualified to give an opinionperhaps, I was in an ill humour, or—I don't know, for I now think she is very pretty."

"So do I," returned Julian Jenks.

"And a very nice girl, besides," continued Peregrine Pultuney,

clever."

66

very naïve, and lively, and

Very," echoed Julian Jenks.

"I wonder she has not married," resumed Peregrine; "she would make a very good wife."

"Do you really think so?" asked Mr. Jenks, somewhat astonished at this last declaration of his friend's; "I should be afraid of having such a hairbrained girl for my wife-that I should-not a little."

"Marriage would tame her," observed Peregrine. "Perhaps it would," returned Julian, "but I should not like to make the experiment myself.