A stranger amid that gay throng, and caring little on the eve of embarkation whether or not I made new acquaintances, I was attending to one or two stout and elderly mammas, who being neither handsome nor blooming, had been somewhat neglected; and while doing the honours with our cold fowl, pink cream and champagne, a voice close by me said:
"And so, Basil, you are going to the seat of war?"
I looked around, and found Aurora Gauntlet's blue eyes bent on me with something of sad earnestness.
"You will shake hands with me, Basil—won't you?"
I coloured and trembled with pride, perplexity, and even annoyance; but pressed her hand in mine, though the wrongs I had suffered at the behest of our grandfather swelled up bitterly in my heart.
"So, Basil," she resumed, smiling, "I have brought your military escapade to a creditable—to a pleasant termination; have I not?"
"I felt quite certain, Miss Gauntlet, that it was to you I owed my epaulettes, and I pray you to accept of my gratitude for your friendship and memory. My military escapade! Is it thus you term the resource of stern necessity? Would it have been an escapade had I turned highwayman, or joined some desperate privateer? Few resources are left to a penniless gentleman, so I chose the most honourable."
"I deplore your bitterness of spirit, cousin Basil," said she, "and I pity you; but what could—what can I do?"
"I ask no pity, Miss Gauntlet," I replied, somewhat ruffled; "but permit me to lead you from this—here we cannot converse with freedom." And taking her hand, we went forth into the sunny lawn, Aurora holding her riding-habit gathered in her left hand, her ostrich feather drooping over her right shoulder, and very lovely and graceful she looked in the bloom of her youth and beauty.
"Forgive me," said she, almost with tears in her eyes, and a quiver on her pouting lip, for she knew in what a hostile aspect I viewed her; "but I think your conduct to me, as a kinswoman who seeks to befriend you, most unkind and ungracious! Think of what is before you, and that we may never see or meet each other again."