"Maidstone! why, you griff, I should think so. Don't you remember leaving us at Allahabad, after Jack Delamere died?"
"By Jove, Stapylton—Stapylton, of the 14th! How are you, old fellow?"
"The same;" and they shook hands, as he now recognised a brother subaltern of his old Hussar corps.
"And you are here on the staff?" said Stapylton.
"Like yourself; but pro tem. till sent off to headquarters. You came up country with her ladyship?"
"Ah—yes."
"Who is that lovely girl near her?"
"Which?"
"She in the white silk, and lace trimmed with black—a kind of second mourning I take it to be."
"Oh, you needn't ask with any interested views. A proud, reserved minx is that little party; but she has been going the pace with that fellow of the Irregular Horse, to whom she is talking and smiling now, and did so all the way out overland. It was an awful case of spoon in the Red Sea, just where Pharaoh was swallowed up; and the Viceroy's wife is very anxious to make a match of it, as a plea for an extra ball."