was the odds? In a very few days we were on the old Malta footing again. She never let me out of her sight. All the other women were as ugly as sin, so all the men paid her no end of attention. She was a showy woman, mind you, and fellows are hard up for something to do at sea when they're not sleeping or eating. At first she rather took up with one or two of them. There was a tea-planter, and an Indian officer, and a doctor she carried on with for a bit; and then, hang it! I got on my mettle, and resolved to show these fellows they hadn't a chance. So I went in for her again in the old way, and made all the others wild, and I liked that. I got her to turn the doctor out of his seat at meals, which was next to mine, and give it up to her, and she sat beside me all the rest of the voyage. Then I used to carry up my arm-chair to the deck for her when it was fine, and wouldn't let her use any other person's; and if there was a little sea on, I used to give her my arm up and down the deck. How the other women used to scowl and sneer and whisper! but I liked that too. Then she quarrelled with all the women, and quarrelled with the men, and made me quarrel with them, and had a row with the captain about her light at night, and set me at him. He was a good fellow the skipper, but I had a jolly row with him. While we were jawing about the light, he said, 'Who the deuce is this empress who is to have special indulgences on board the Fleece?' and I said, 'D-n the Fleece!' and that she was a very different lot from what the Fleece carried in general; and he said, 'He hoped so.' And I said, 'Why?' and he said he thought she was a queer one.' Then I told him to explain himself, and he said, 'Do you see any green in my eye, youngster?' and I said, 'D-n his eye, and not to call me youngster.' Then we had a tremendous turn-up; he swore he would report me to the adjutant-general, and I swore I'd have him up before the Board of Trade; then he roared out laughing and went away forward. But it was hot water for me after that, all the voyage; it was not pleasant, I can tell you. The only comfort I had was, that all the men were as jealous as tigers of me. As the voyage began to draw to an end she got awfully low and moping, and cried very much; and I asked her what the row was. Then she told me she had terrible misgivings about the marriage; that she feared she had mistaken her feelings, and that her strength would fail her; that she sometimes felt it would be an injustice to the 'person in the highest official position in the civil service' to give him her hand when her heart could never be his. One night in the dusk we were sitting on deck together, and she was saying all this; and that, as for her own feelings, of course happiness was banished from her heart for ever, and that probably it would be better if its desolate beatings were stilled for evermore, and she laid at rest in an Orient grave, over which no one would drop a tear; and she cried awfully, and popped her head down on my shoulder. I was confoundedly cut up, and said, 'Don't cry, Carlotta ; it's sure to be all right. You'll find the person in the highest official position will turn out a trump, and no mistake.' "But she moaned and sobbed, and kept saying, 'No, no, no; lay me in an Orient grave!' At last I got cut up with a vengeance, and-and I kissed her-I did—I wanted to soothe her, I was so sorry for her, so I kissed her, and said, 'Don't cry, my darling, I can't bear it.' The moment I did this she jumped up with a scream, and cried, 'I'm ruined! I'm undone! Look there! look there!' I looked, but I could see nothing but the captain's parrot taking his evening stroll on the quarter-deck. 'What was it?' I said. 'Oh !' said she, sitting down and panting, with both hands on her heart -oh! it's all over now; my character's gone that Mrs Gligsby was looking out of the cabin door and saw us. O Adolphus, you've destroyed me! you wicked, wicked man!' I swore I hadn't seen Mrs Gligsby, and went into the cabin to look after her, and there she was on the off side of the table, with her back to the wall, calmly playing whist with the captain and two others—so it couldn't have been her. But Carlotta wouldn't be comforted, and insisted that Mrs Gligsby had been there, and had harked back to the whist all as a blind, for that she was cunning and deceitful and vindictive, and I would see what I would see. "At last we got to the Sandheads' and took our pilot on board, and our letters came down; and Carlotta made a tremendous shindy when there were none for her, and had hysterics all the way up the Hoogly it was awful the way she went on. "Well, we berthed opposite the Fort. No end of people came on board to receive their friends; and such a bustle and such a row! -nigger servants coming to look for masters, and hotel touts and custom-house officers, and all that sort of business. I went to my cabin to finish up my packing and be out of the scrimmage; and, after a bit, went up on deck to see about Carlotta's affairs, whom I had lost sight of in the bustle. By Jove, sir! there she was-sitting huddled up beside the wheel-pale as death, her eyes quite fixed, and with such a look of horror and despair, it seemed to freeze me. I went up to her and said, 'Good God! what's the matter?' and she said, quite calmly, but in a dreadful voice, Go away, and let me die!' and then I found that the person in the highest official position, &c., hadn't put in an appearance, and, by degrees, that she had no money-not a stiver; and she and her maid each had a long tic with the steward. Well, what could I do? Of course I paid her bill and drove her to Spence's Hotel, and established her there with her woman, and told her not to be unhappy, for that I had lots of tin, and would be delighted to be her banker till the person in the highest, &c., turned up; and then I drove off to the Great Eastern myself. "The next day I went over to see about her. Her maid came down and said, 'What was to be done?' her mistress had had some bad news that morning, and was nearly out of her mind—'What was she to do?' 'I didn't know,' I said, 'unless I could see her mistress could I see her?' The maid didn't think she was calm enough then; I had better call back in an hour or so, and so I did. Carlotta was sitting in a great empty cheerless room; her eyes were red and her face white as death, and her hair all tumbled. She looked so wretched, so desolate, who could have helped pitying her? I did from my heart, as I thought, 'Poor thing! what lines for her! to be so far away from home-a woman—by herself-without friends or money waiting to be married to a fellow who begins by allowing her to arrive in this devil of a country without a welcome!' 'Carlotta,' I said, what is the matter, my poor girl?' but she didn't speak. I asked her again, but she only moaned out, 'I wish I were dead! I wish to heaven I were dead! I am disgraced, dishonoured, betrayed!' I took her hand-it felt like a bit of lead. Tell me what has happened,' I said. She raised her head for a moment and pointed to a note that lay on the table. It looked as if she had been crumpling and biting and crying over it-and so she had, I don't doubt. "MADAM,-I came to Calcutta to meet you yesterday, but an accident made me late in reaching the steamer, and when I did reach it you were gone. I do not regret the accident now, as it has been the means of preventing me from taking a step which I should, no doubt, have lived to regret bitterly. Making inquiries on board the ship as to your movements, I was informed by a very sensible person, who gave her name as Gligsby, that you had hurriedly left the ship with a Hussar officer-a Lieutenant Burridge; and on my expressing surprise, she said that, in her opinion, you would have left sooner if there had been any land touched at; for that of all the "discreditable conduct," as she expressed it, your conduct with this officer was the most discreditable she had ever witnessed. "Billings and cooings," she said, morn, noon, and night; and, what was worse, "frequent kissings almost in public." That, under the circumstances, I should decline to fulfil my engagement will scarcely surprise you. I regret the trouble you have been put to in coming out; but Lieutenant Burridge will, no doubt, indemnify you for that; and I can only say that, if he has one spark of honour, one ray of finer feeling, one iota of humanity left, he will make to you the only reparation which, as a man and a soldier, he can do, by marrying you himself without a moment's delay.-I am yours, &c., "T. W. "P.S.-I should add that the captain of the ship fully corroborates the painful statement of Mrs Gligsby.' "When I read this there was a kind of mist came over my eyes, and all sorts of things flashed through my mind as quick as lightning. Did I want to marry Carlotta? No, certainly not. I didn't care for her, and I didn't want to marry at all then. I was young and rich, and had large prospects, and I had very soon learned the value of these things in the world. A marriage like this would be a flooring thing for all my after-life. I could never shake it off-never. Then I looked at her, so desolate, so ill used, so heartbroken, and, as I believed, so fond of me, and I said to myself, 'If I forsake this poor woman in her grief, when she has lost all her prospects through me, I am the most selfish scoundrel in the world, and would deserve to be drummed out; and I'll stick to her-so help me God! I will.' All this passed in a moment. Then I knelt down beside her, and put my arm round her waist, and said, 'Don't cry, darling,' but she cried all the more; and I said, 'Carlotta, will you let me comfort you? Will you let me take the place of this scoundrel' (meaning the person in the highest official position) 'who has betrayed you?' Then she looked up-so sad and wearied she looked-and said, 'No, Adolphus, I love you too fondly to wish you to sacrifice your life to mine. Because I am wretched, why should you be? I can't accept a husband without his love, and yours, I know, I haven't got.' I thought this very noble and disinterested of her, and I cried out, 'But I do love you, Carlotta-I swear I do' (and I believed it for five minutes), 'and if you'll take me, here I am. I'll do my best to make you happy, and be a good husband to you as long as I live.' "Then she threw her arms round my neck, and said I had raised her from the dead-that she cared for nothing else, now I said that I loved her-that she was perfectly happy, only would I mind saying it again and again? I did so. I vowed and swore that I adored her, and I kissed her like-like—a good deal, and then we had tiffin. went out after to make arrangements for the marriage, and then we rode in the Course.' I was in a sort of dream; I remember I the band playing there-a sweet kind of air, and rather a sad one, and it seemed to say, 'You've cooked your goose, Dolly, my boy, and all your jolly days are over.' By George! the band was right. 6 6 "Three days after, we were married in the church in Fort William; you know the church, Donald? I didn't know a soul, no more did Carlotta; and as she couldn't ask 'the person in the, &c.,' to give her away, I boned the doctor whose seat she had taken on board the Fleece, and he gave her away. "We had a little make-believe marriage déjeuner at the hotel after. Gad! how miserable I was! The doctor got screwed, and insisted on making speeches, I rememberthough we were only three-proposed The Queen and The Rest of the Royal Family,' 'The Army and Navy,' 'The Church,' &c. &c., and kept cheering away like fun, all by himself; and brought in a punkah-wallah, and told him to return thanks for the Church, because he was 'japanned,' he said, like a parson; and he kicked the beggar down-stairs because he wouldn't do it-couldn't, you know, of course-and dropped an ice-pail after him; and the landlord came up, and we had a row. Oh, it was horrible! it's all like a bad dream. I recollect trifling little things as if it was yesterday, and I remember thinking how unlike it all was to what a good man's and a good woman's marriage ought to be. But Carlotta was in high spirits, and we drove down in the evening to Barrackpore, and went to the hotel there for the honeymoon. The honeymoon didn't last long-only three days. I had reported myself in Calcutta, of course, and in fact got leave, you know, to go away from the town for a week, leaving my address in case I was wanted. My regiment was up country, but I was to march up in charge of detachments or something, whenever there anything to go. It was the Mutiny was time, and no fellow could travel up country like a gentleman then, I can tell you. Every one had to put his shoulder to the wheel. Well, we had been honeymooning at Barrackpore for three days-Lord, how sick I was of it!-when an orderly arrived with a thundering official for me. "I was to march up country with a mixed draft in forty-eight hours. I didn't know what the deuce to do with Carlotta. You see I had made no preparations, because the marriage had come off so suddenly. But in we went to Calcutta, and put up at Spence's; and I thought I would go and consult the regimental agent, and I did. He looked gloomy at first, and said, patronisingly, he didn't see what was to be done; leaving a lady at an hotel was an expensive business for a subaltern, and there were no lodgings in Calcutta. I said, 'Lodgings, be hanged! I must take a house for her, of course.' He laughed and said, 'Who's to pay the piper?' and I flared up and said, 'Who should pay the piper for a man's wife but a man himself?' And he fumbled his keys and things in his pocket, and said, coolly, 'You have private means, perhaps; but rent here is enormous: it would take more than your whole pay, for it isn't even full batta down here.' I said, 'Yes, of course I have private means; I have four thousand a-year, and as much more as ever I like from my grandmother.' Then his manner changed at once-I'll be hanged if I ever met a fellow of that sort, Donald, whose manner didn't change when he found I was coiny. Coin can do a lot of things, but it can't make me happy now, confound it. Well, he became as civil as possible, and I gave him a letter from my bankers at home; and then he wanted me to tiffin, and come and live with him — and have a brandy-and-soda then and there, and a weed, all among his ledgers and things. He was very useful, and took any amount of trouble, and found a very nice house before next forenoon, in Garden Reach, all furnished and ready (in fact, I believe he turned out of it himself-the rent was so enormous); and you know you can get servants (of a sort) by whistling there; so that night Carlotta and I took up house in our new abode. I gave her an unlimited credit (like a fool) with the agent, and next day said 'Good-bye.' She cried, of course, tremendously. I can't say I did; for as soon as we were married her manner and style seemed to change, and I saw she was a horribly coarse, low-bred, vulgar woman, and that she had been acting the lady, just as if she were on the stage, all the time before. She could act like fun, she was amazingly clever. So I went away up country with my draft, and I thought as I left Calcutta, I don't care if I never come down country again.' "I needn't bore you with the march up. At Benares they took us and sent us off with a flying column,' and we were dodging about after rebels for nine weeks; then we got to Allahabad, and off again on another cruise, and so on we were handed about from one place to another, and all through Central India. The detachment was separated and broken up by this time, for they boned men and officers just as they wanted them, and didn't care what regiment you belonged to, and whether you were cavalry, infantry, or artillery-but you know all that. I had very affectionate letters from Carlotta every now and then; to read them you would have believed that she spent half her time in praying for me, and the other half in bullying the post-office authorities about not getting my letters regularly. "It was a horrid campaignnothing but marches and forced marches-pelting away after the mutineers in the heat of the sun, just as if we were in Northern Europe-night alarms and day alarms-short commons and long fasts-fever, ague, cholera, and sunstroke,-that was about the programme. Deuced little fighting. Now and then we got a chance, and blazed at them at long range; and sometimes, when they were two hundred to one, they would stand up to their guns-then there was a rush and a little bayoneting; but it was all over in a minute or two, and they were off like the wind, and it had all to begin again-padnaggering away after the beggars, and all for no satisfaction. I was sick of it, and uncommon glad when we were ordered into quarters. Then I joined my new regiment. They were at Wallahbad, a small station near the hills. I had never seen them all this time, for they had been cruising in another direction. I liked them-they were a good set of fellows; and when I joined I found I had just got my troop. Promotion was going fast then (the sun had something to say to that, and cholera a good deal); but as I was an infantry fellow, I had the drill and riding-school business to go through, and that was a bore. Somehow I couldn't make up my mind to tell the fellows I was married, and I was so young no one would have dreamt of it. I was desperately unwilling that Carlotta should come up, and always wanted her to put off and off. I told her I was kept so busy with the drill and riding-school it was no good her coming up yet a while, and that she had better stay where she was. So she did for a bit; but I suppose she got sick of it, for all of a sudden up she came without any warning. That put me in a nice fix, I can tell you. I remember her arrival so well. It was just after tiffin, and all the fellows were lounging about in the mess-compound, for it was coolish weather. The public road ran just past the compound; and all of a sudden some one sang out, 'Holloa! an |