"And he lies there alone?" said Sybil, her eyes involuntarily wandering to the great dog which lay near them on the grass.
"Quite alone—poor Jack! he was the soul of the mess-bungalow."
"And what is this Hall with the wonderful pillars?"
"Oh! that is a Buddhist Temple—all hewn out of the living rock. I sketched it at Ellora. Those caves are masses of carving, and are among the most wonderful things in India, as they often consist of many apartments or halls of vast height, decorated, as you see, with elaborate columns and monstrous statues. My next sketch is a Hindoo water-girl. I gave her a rupee to stand for me at Arcot; but, as her clothing is somewhat scanty, we shall skip to the next. Ah—that is a mango tree, and here are the palace of Mysore and the town and fort of Agra."
"How much you have seen of the world!" said Sybil, her dark eyes dilating as she glanced for a moment at the stranger's young and handsome face; "I wonder if Denzil will ever look upon those places. Heavens, how poor and mean do my Cornish sketches of ruins, rocks, and engines look, after yours!"
"Nay, do not say so," replied the other, smiling, as he surveyed with growing interest the soft bright face of the speaker, under its piquant little hat and veil; "hideous as the edifices are in reality, some of our mining engine-houses, with all their chains and pulleys, wheels and timber, blocks and gearing, their heaps of rubbish and debris, they make somewhat picturesque sketches."
"True; but I prefer those great solemn stones of unknown antiquity, and I never tire of drawing them."
"But they are so deucedly alike," replied the young officer; "and now for your book—ah, do permit me," he added, turning the leaves.
"That is the Lake of Como, where we passed several months," said Sybil, tremulous with hesitation, for what she deemed alike the boldness of the attempt and the poverty of her execution. "I now wonder how I dared to think of depicting such a scene, with all its white villas and green groves of orange and flowering arbutas; its cliffs and crags, and, over all, the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, and the mountains of the Brianza covered with pine-forests!"
"Perhaps each sketch is the souvenir of some past or tender happiness? And this stately palace, with the terrace before it?"