"Well, take courage, Phil; we may be at Craigaderyn one day yet," said I; and he, as if ashamed of his momentary sentimental outburst, exclaimed, with a laugh,
"By Jove, now that I have heard all your amours and amourettes, they surpass even those of Hugh Price."
"Poor Hugh! his lieutenancy is filled up, I suppose?"
"Yes--as another week would have seen your company, for we could not conceive that you were a prisoner at Yalta. Awkward that would have been."
"Deucedly so."
"But now you must console yourself, old fellow, by seeing what Madame la Colonelle Tolstoff----"
"Don't call her by that name, Phil--I hate to hear it!"
"By what, then?"
"Valerie--anything but the other."
"Then what, as Mrs. Henry Hardinge, she might become, if all this author (whose book I have been reading) says of the Russian ladies be true." And drawing from his pocket a small volume, he gave me the following paragraph to read, and I own it consoled me--a little:--