"Oh, I assure you, it's not all beer and skittles, Mrs. Barwell," supplemented Charles Young, who was half sitting on a table. "What do you think. They want me to cut off my moustache!"
At this there was a roar of laughter, his moustache being represented by a very faint outline of delicate down.
"Well, now, I suppose we ought to go on to the polo," said Colonel Palgrave, putting down his tea-cup, "perhaps we shall lose something good."
Mrs. Barwell immediately agreed, hurried into her bedroom, and returned in a second, in a flowery hat, and the party sallied forth on foot. Verona found herself walking beside Mrs. Palgrave; she had a good face and a charmingly sympathetic manner. Verona had heard that the wife of the commanding officer was a most popular lady, and Blanche's tale, that she and the major's wife did not speak, was obviously a fable.
Mrs. Palgrave, although but eight-and-thirty years of age, was a deputy parent to all "the boys." She listened to their troubles, and had them to dine on Sundays; she nursed them when they were ill; she wrote to their mothers, and generally kept her eye on them. She was, moreover, a treasure to her husband; managed all the sewing clubs and mothers' meetings, visited hospitals, had never made the slightest effort to marry her sister in the regiment, and was generally respected and beloved.
"I've not seen you before," she remarked to Verona. (But she had heard of her.) "And now you have found your way into the station, I hope some day you will come and spend an afternoon with me."
"Thank you very much," was the girl's non-committal answer.
She did not wish to mix in station society.
"I think it is very likely that we have some mutual friends."
"Perhaps we have."