"It is only when we have been long at sea and have lost sight of Europe," wrote Denzil, "ay, dearest Sybil, even of Europe, which seems all one country and one home to us, that the Anglo-Indian feels his banishment has fairly begun, and he is to be, henceforth, as some fellow has it, 'among the dusky people of Ind, with whom we have no traditions, no religious, few domestic, and scarcely any moral sentiments in common, and whose very costume (want of it, sometimes, I should say) is only characteristic of a much greater difference of inward nature.' And so I am actually by birth a lord—a lord! I have thought, and many visions of future greatness have floated through my mind—and dear mamma is a lady—-Dowager Lady Lamorna. How odd it sounds. Are we all losing our identity; and how is all this to be proved? The past mystery nearly cost me my life when I first joined, and in this fashion:—
"Bob Waller, one of ours, a pleasant but sometimes supercilious fellow, asked me one evening in the mess bungalow, if 'my people were from the Channel Islands?'
"'No,' replied I, colouring, for I always felt that some mystery existed about us; 'but why do you ask?'
"'The name sounds like a French one,' replied Waller.
"'We are connected somehow with Montreal.'
"'Oh, that explains it,' rejoined Waller.
"'There is nothing to explain,' said I, angrily.
"'Think not?—well—have a cigar?'
"I roughly, perhaps, declined it, so Waller returned to the charge by saying—
"'Your father was once in the Cornish Light Infantry, you say?'