"The Earl of Kildonan, senior Lieutenant-Colonel of the Scots Fusiliers," replied Amy drily; "and you, sir?"
"I am Oliver Ellis—don't you remember me, Amy? Oh, you cannot have forgotten Oliver, whom you were wont to love, and who loved you so much, at dear old Applewood."
"What! are you my old friend—my lover Oliver?" she exclaimed, with a gleam of pleasure in her charming eyes, and a burst of merry laughter—so merry that it served, even more than her marriage, to demolish a very romantic structure which I had been raising mentally. "I am thunderstruck, but oh, most happy to see you—to meet you again! We were such dear good friends——"
"Friends—rather; come, this is very good!" said I under my breath and with indescribable annoyance.
"You must tell me all about this, and how it came to pass. Come, sit here between Georgette and me, and tell us all about yourself directly," she added, taking my left hand in hers; the wounded right was too tender yet to brook being meddled with. I felt confused and piqued, for although we had heard in the regiment that the earl had married a Miss Lee in Scotland, and that his countess, after joining him in Guadaloupe, had been nearly taken by the French at the recapture of La Fleur d'Epée, I would as readily have conceived that his wife might prove to be queen of Sheba as my old love Amy Lee, of Applewood.
So there was a great destruction of a little romance in a moment.
I had no reason to find any fault with Amy; and yet it seemed as if a sudden pique at her made Georgette's gentle eyes more dark, and her golden hair more bright than ever.
I took my seat between them.