It was the morning after Cecil Falconer's detachment had come in to headquarters overnight.
In the mess-room about a dozen officers in their blue patrol jackets, all more or less good-looking, even handsome young fellows, each and all having a certain joyous and straightforwardness of manner, were at breakfast, singly or in groups, and all greeted Falconer and Fotheringhame warmly, for both were prime favourites with the corps, and there was much shaking of hands and slapping on the back, with 'Welcome, old fellow!' 'How goes it?' and so forth, while an aroma of coffee and devilled bones pervaded the long room which had windows at each end, and where each officer seemed to be economising time, by reading during the meal, with a daily paper or comic serial—Punch, of course—propped against his coffee-pot or sugar-basin. All were discussing the repast in haste, as the hour of morning parade was close at hand.
'Here you are again, Falconer and Fotheringhame!' cried one; 'the Damon and Pythias—the David and Jonathan of the Cameronians! The very men we wanted; you have just come in time for the ball committee!'
'Heard the good news, Falconer, old fellow?' asked Dick Freeport.
'No—what is it? One of the three girls you proposed to accepted you?' said Falconer, leisurely tapping an egg.
'Ah, you've heard that story; nothing so stupid. But is it possible you don't know?'
'What?'
'That your name is in the Gazette; but here you are, as large as life,' added Freeport, reading aloud: '"Lieutenant Cecil Falconer to be Captain, vice Brevet Major Balerno seconded for service on the Staff." I congratulate you.'
'And so do we all!' cried Acharn, a frank, jolly captain, though not yet eight-and-twenty.
'Thanks; I knew not that Balerno was leaving us so soon,' said Falconer, whose first thoughts were of Mary Montgomerie.