"Yes, and Mrs. Bourne says I shall make a splendid wife for a pauper, I manage so economically, and keep down the ghee, and charcoal. The cook is quite afraid of me!"
Her fiancé burst into a derisive laugh. "As if any man, woman or child, would be afraid of you! I'll work tremendously hard, and take that little estate Tom recommends, and we will have a jolly life, keep a couple of ponies, lots of dogs, and run down to Bangalore in the slack time. How will that be?"
"Delightful. I see, you have thought it all out!"
"Why not? We have no one to please, but ourselves—you have no consent to ask for, nor have I. Of course, I'll tell Fan and Fred. I know he adores you, partly I think—because you never gave Naughty Mary a sore back! You shall go and interview him, and melt his heart, and ask him to give you away?"
"If he were to see your scarred head, and thin sunken cheeks, that would be far more likely to touch him."
"Well, the Beamishes return in a few days, and I'll beard him when I go down to make arrangements for my run home. It will be awfully hard to leave you behind, Barbie."
"Yes; but I always think the one who is left has the worst of it!"
"No, no, no. However, hang it all, we are not going to grouse—three months will soon go by, and I shall be back before Mrs. Bourne starts, and take you over, Barbie, with all your liabilities."
These much-discussed plans of the young couple, were presently upset by a letter to Mallender, which said:
"Dear Sir,