"But you may be an artist, and a well-skilled one."
"And what then?"
"I should blush for my work."
"Nay. Well, then, I am not an artist, but merely an amateur—an officer on leave; yet I am fond of using my pencil, and have the regimental reputation of doing so with pretty good success."
Sybil thought of her brother Denzil—he too was an officer; poor Denzil, now so far, far away—and she gave her new acquaintance a half shy and half doubtful glance, that served to charm him very much, and then showed her sketch, which he praised warmly, as by good breeding and in duty bound.
It was doubtless cleverly done, but his eye wandered to the rare and delicate beauty of the little hand that had achieved it. Her sketch, however, was inferior to his own, which he now produced, with Sybil's own figure seated on the camp-stool introduced in the middle distance, so as to give the exact proportion of the great rock-pillar.
"Oh, sir," she exclaimed, "you have me in your sketch, as well as the big stone."
"Could I omit the most pleasing feature in my little landscape?"
Sybil coloured again, for her education, and the peculiar mode in which she had been reared, made her, at times, shy and reserved; she knew not why, for to be so was not her natural character, which was rather candid, frank, and free; so, to change the subject from herself, she hastened to turn over the leaves of the stranger's sketch-book, wherein were many drawings full of spirit and interest.
"That wooden cross," said he, "marks the grave of poor Jack Delamere, who gave me Rajah, through whom I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance to-day. He died when we were on the march up country to Allahabad, and I buried him in a grove of date palms."