In a surprisingly short time Miss Gascoigne had made her presence felt in Marwar. Mrs. Gordon had submitted to be enslaved; her stolid, self-engrossed husband had expressed his admiration, Shafto was her bond servant, and within a week Mrs. Gordon, popular Mrs. Gordon, had never remembered in all her experience such a rush of young men's cards and calls. Angel had unpacked her pretty toilettes—toilettes that threw her mother's home-made costumes completely into the shade—which she wore with an every-day grace. Lovely, fascinating, maddening, was the station verdict, as they saw the girl in carriage, or on horseback; such a creature had not adorned for twenty years, and oh! what a charge for Philip Gascoigne. Meanwhile Angel revived old memories, captured the affections of Mrs. Gordon, threw out many queries respecting Philip, and embarked on a series of flirtations. Mrs. Flant and Miss Ball at first posed to the station as her original friends and sponsors. They were important on the subject; she had been given into their care by Major Gascoigne, and it was with them that she had travelled from Khartgodam. She was a delightful companion, so amusing and so vivacious. But as days flew by a change came o'er the spirit of their dream, for among the crowd who had flocked to Angela's standard was a certain Mr. Tarletan in the D. P. W., who had sworn, or, at least whispered, allegiance to Fanny Ball. This put a completely new complexion on Angela's character. Miss Ball was some years over thirty, a slender young woman, whose admirers and good looks were visibly deserting her, and her sister was painfully anxious to see Fanny settled. Fanny had been foolish, and let so many good chances slip through her fingers; Mr. Tarletan represented the last of these; it was really a most serious matter. He had been asked to the house, lavishly entertained, and taken out to dances; he had spent a whole expensive month with the Flants in the hills, on the strength of his attentions: did the man suppose he was going to get out of that for _nothing_? But this mean-spirited miscreant ignored all bonds and claims, and prostrated himself at the feet of the adorable Angel. His greetings to Mrs. Flant were offhand and brief, his answers to her questions curt, his pressing engagements fictional. As he had seven hundred rupees a month, and good prospects, Mrs. Flant was not going to suffer him to escape; she accordingly turned to her most seasoned and formidable weapon—her tongue.