'Her face was indeed a sweet and winsome one, and once or twice, as a mass of her golden-brown hair, which her ayah had failed to adjust properly? fell suddenly about her neck, she gave a petulant shrug of her white shoulders, while her beautiful hands were upraised to confine the coils, showing thereby the taper form of her arms and the contour of her bust and waist, while many a "sub" looked fondly and admiringly on. Other handsome girls were present, and it was really something wonderful to see so much fair English beauty there in Afghanistan, at the very back of the world as it were!
'Her cousin Bella was a soft, yet sparkling little brunette, whose father had fallen at the storming of Ghuzni; since when she had lived under the wing and care of her aunt, Mrs. Berriedale.
'To simply eye her admiringly from a distance was not the rôle I had intended to adopt; but I resolved to wait my opportunity, when there might be some break in the circle around her, and was passing into the inner drawing-room, which was nearly empty, when I trod upon a pocket-book. It was a bijou affair—tiny, scarlet morocco, and gilt—a lady's evidently. To whom could it belong? I looked round for Lady Sale, but she had left the room. The owner's name would doubtless be inside; ere I could think of opening it, the book opened of itself, where a leaf was turned down, and where I saw—my own name, written more than once, with another added thereto: "Mabel Clinton—Mrs. Robert Clinton."
'I trembled with astonishment and joy. She had been wondering how the name would look written, and written it was, in her hand, with which notes of invitation had made me perfectly familiar. I heard the hum of voices in the next room, the sounds of laughter, and the crash of the band in the antechamber beyond, as one in a dream, for the discovery now made was rather a bewildering one.
'That I had a place in her heart, that she was more than interested in me, and that she linked the idea of me with herself, I would not doubt, despite her occasional coldness and coquetries with others; but how was I to use the knowledge so suddenly, so unexpectedly won? It was alike dangerous to keep or to return the book, though surely she would never dream that I had opened and read it, but the hand of Fate had done the former for me; and if thrown aside, it would be found by others, and become a source of secret joking in the cantonments, so I source of secret joking in the cantonments, so I placed it in the breast of my uniform, and seeing her left almost alone for a moment, hastened to capture her, and offer her my arm, which she accepted at once, and we proceeded slowly to promenade the rooms.
'"You have not been near me to-night," said she, fanning herself, though the air was cool enough.
'"It is so difficult to get near you; you are always the centre of a circle in whose unmeaning gaiety I have not the heart to join."
'"You scarcely compliment me in saying this," said she, colouring a little; "I was fond of gaiety, fun, what you will, when in Central India, and down at Calcutta, but here we have been triste enough. Cabul is simply horrible!"
'"And I wish, for your sake, and the sake of many others, that we were well out of it; but it was not of this everyday topic I desired to speak with you."
'"Of what, then?" she asked in a low voice, though we had now reached the lower end of the outer drawing-room, where the windows were open to the floor, and gave access to a veranda filled with flowers, and the green jalousies enclosing which rendered it a species of corridor.