"And why?" enquired Bellew, smiling.
"Dear me, Mr. Bellew I—how should I know, only I do,—and what's more—he knows it too! And how," she enquired, changing the subject abruptly, "how is your bed,—comfortable, mm?"
"Very!"
"You sleep well?"
"Like a top!"
"Any complaints, so far?"
"None whatever," laughed Bellew, shaking his head.
"That is very well. We have never had a boarder before, and Miss Anthea,—bless her dear soul! was a little nervous about it. And here's the Sergeant!"
"I—er—beg your pardon—?" said Bellew.
"The Sergeant!" repeated Miss Priscilla, with a prim little nod, "Sergeant Appleby, late of the Nineteenth Hussars,—a soldier every inch of him, Mr. Bellew,—with one arm—over there by the peaches." Glancing in the direction she indicated, Bellew observed a tall figure, very straight and upright, clad in a tight-fitting blue coat, with extremely tight trousers strapped beneath the insteps, and with a hat balanced upon his close-cropped, grizzled head at a perfectly impossible angle for any save an ex-cavalry-man. Now as he stood examining a peach-tree that flourished against the opposite wall, Bellew saw that his right sleeve was empty, sure enough, and was looped across his broad chest.