"No," she replied; "for although Mrs. Flant's hints are abominable falsehoods, her lie has had three weeks' start. Whilst you have been absent it has been travelling rapidly, and growing like a snowball. How are you to overtake it? and what family of girls would receive a young woman—with a—story?" The lady's methods were cruel, but it was all for the good of the subject, and his ultimate happiness; the end justified the means. "Angela's name has been bandied about; you must change it from Miss to Mrs." "I'll be——" he began, and pulled himself up. "I shall go straight off to Mrs. Flant, and cram her words down her throat, and make her eat them. If she were a man, I declare, I would flog her. What is her tale?" "Merely a hill idyll—which she discovered one stormy evening." "But Angel came out in the _Arabia_; she had only the start of Mrs. Flant by about one hundred moments, and there are two hundred witnesses to prove it." "True, but if you make a stir, you stir up mud," was Mrs. Gordon's damping rejoinder. "You will make matters worse. At present, talk is confined within a certain limited radius; surely you don't wish Angel to be the talk of India?" Here came Angel running, in a flowing, white gown, with a note in her hand. She was accompanied by two frolicking puppies, and looked like the spirit of youth. "Good morning again, Philip," she said; then glancing at her friend, she continued, "I declare, you two are like a couple of conspirators—where is the dark lantern? Who is to be the victim?" "You are," was Mrs. Gordon's unexpected reply. "We are meditating carrying you off into camp for six weeks." "How delightful—there's nothing I shall enjoy so much. Are you going to invite Philip?" glancing at him. "I don't think I can get away," he stammered—"at least, not for more than a couple of days at a time." "I always had an idea that there was next to no work in India; that it was all racing and polo, and dancing and flirting." "Well, my dear child, you see you were wrong," said Mrs. Gordon. "Who is the note from, my dear?" "Only a line from Miss Lennox, to say that she and her sister regret that they cannot come over to have a game of tennis this evening—such a funny stiff little note," and she tendered it to her hostess between two fingers, whilst Mrs. Gordon's and Major Gascoigne's eyes met in a glance of quick significance. * * * * * As Major Gascoigne was walking home across the parade-ground, a pony-carriage and pair of fat Pegu ponies drew up on the road, and awaited him. Then a lady's head was poked out from under the hood, and a smiling face, crowned by an Ellwood helmet, said: "So pleased to see you back again." "Thank you, Mrs. Wiggins," he rejoined. "I want to be the first to congratulate you on your beautiful cousin—she is lovely—everyone is talking of her, and no wonder. And when is it to be?" "When is—what to be?" he asked stiffly.