pleased at the symptoms of his being violently in love with her, and accepted his homage with a light heart, as hardly more than her due. CHAPTER XIX. A BRUSH ON THE FRONTIER. Tell me not, love, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. The reign of peace and pleasure was not destined to last through the summer undisturbed. Conflicts, more serious than those which were agitating poor Boldero's breast, broke in upon the tranquil season and caused a hurried dispersion of many of the holiday-makers. For weeks past the news from the frontier had not been reassuring. Blunt had gone off on his mission to the Rumble Chunder District, dragging the miserable Whisp, who could not ride and hated leaving head-quarters, in his train. He had mastered the whole matter, as he considered, from first to last and was resolved to bring his knowledge to bear with good effect upon the entanglements which his predecessors' ignorance and indistinctness had produced. He saw his way quite clearly and was resolved to have it. Other people had faltered and hesitated; but Blunt was resolved to strike, and to strike hard, and to finish the matter and have done with it once for all. He arrived, accordingly, in no mood to be trifled with, as Mahomed Khan, the first of the Zámindars who had an interview with him, discovered in about two minutes. Now, Mahomed Khan, a wily old gentleman, with a great turn for diplomacy, was deeply interested in the Rumble Chunder question, and had, at different times, interviewed a long succession of 'Sahibs' with reference to it. He had invariably found them long-suffering, conciliatory, anxious to learn and not difficult to puzzle. He had talked to them at ease in his own language and was accustomed to the elaborate courtesy due to the leader of a powerful and not over-loyal clan. His antecedents entitled him to respect. When Sutton was getting his troop together in the Mutiny a word from Mahomed Khan would have put the whole district in a blaze and rendered it impossible to recruit a man. The liking, however, which one good soldier feels for another had carried the day. The old fellow had ridden with fifty followers into Sutton's camp, unstrapped his sword, and, placing it in Sutton's hands, had sworn that he and his would follow him wherever he pleased to lead them. Well had the oath been kept; when some months later the fighting closed, Mahomed Khan's name was recorded as amongst the most deserving of Her Majesty's lieges, and his well-timed loyalty had resulted in a fine grant of fat acres, a conspicuous seat in the Durbar, and, not least in the estimation of men keenly sensitive to honour, a vast deal of complimentary writing and talking on the part of every British official with whom he had to deal. All this flattery had, perhaps, turned the old soldier's head, or, at any rate, had given him no small idea of his importance to the British