"Dear Mabel," said Waller in a tender and earnest voice, as his fiancée checked her Arab for a moment by his side, and gave him her hand with a bright confiding smile; "to-day begins, I hope, the first stage of our long homeward journey."
"'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,'" said she, laughing as she rejoined her sister, and her lover, who was somewhat of a critic, thought she was the handsomest girl he had ever seen on horseback.
Bob and Mabel had already begun to fashion mental pictures of a home-life in England, a happy home, a dream life; a pretty house in some sequestered spot, where the old Cornish elm trees might echo to merry children's voices, while the days went by in peace and happiness; but here the troops were called to "attention," and General Trecarrel, who was "mounted," led his daughters to where the advanced guard was posted, and where all the ladies were placed among the cavalry, to the great delight of a couple of cornets who complacently stroked the fair fluff that would in time become moustaches, and begged them not to be in the least alarmed, as they had a most efficient escort.
"Rose," urged Mabel, who had more power of character than her sister and less of folly in her disposition, "it is cruel of you to make such a victim of that poor lad, Devereaux—he is so handsome too."
"That is the reason; but do I ask him to love me?"
"No; you only lure him into doing so; you are incorrigible, and laugh at being so."
"There is no need to think of marrying—the idea is absurd; though one may get up a liking."
"Oh fie!" said Mabel, smiling in spite of herself.
"How sensible and solid we have become since Waller came to the point, and made it all square with papa."
"He has certainly asked me to become his," replied Mabel, with a bright, soft smile.