Playing with Fire: A Story of the Soudan War

by James Grant

'By Jove, Maude, you have grown quite a little beauty!' exclaimed Roland, while, holding each other at arm's length, brother and sister surveyed each other's face; 'but in expression you are not changed a bit.'

'Nor you, Roland—yet, how scorched—how brown you are!'

'That was done in Egypt—but much of it wore off at Merlwood.'

'How long you have been of coming here, Roland!' said Maude, with a pout on her ruby lip.

'Since returning to Britain, you mean?'

'Since returning to Scotland.'

'With all my love for you, my dear little sister, I was loth to face the—the mortifications that I feared awaited me at home.'

'A changed home, Roland!'

'If we can call it so.'

'But then at Merlwood,' said she archly, 'Hester—dear Hester, would be an attraction, of course.'