Her dress was plain, but fitted well her lithe and slender figure. She had on the daintiest of white cuffs and collar; a sunshade over her head lined with pink imparted to her soft face a glow that it did not naturally possess, and over her left arm were the two chaplets she and Ellinor had been so lately preparing. No sound but the rustle of leaves and the twitter of birds broke the sunny stillness, till she eventually heard Jack, her fox-terrier, who was careering in front of her, barking and yelping with all the satisfaction of a joyous dog that has met with a friend, and almost immediately afterwards a turn of the rocky path brought her face to face with Captain Colville, who, rod in hand and basket on shoulder, had just quitted his fishing in the May after a satisfactory day's sport, and about whose well-gaitered legs Jack was leaping and bounding noisily. 'When Jack was here, I knew his mistress could not be far off,' said Colville, lifting his fly-garnished wideawake and presenting a hand with his brightest smile. 'You know the saw, Miss Wellwood, "Love me, love my dog," but it would seem that Jack loves me. And Jack is a travelled dog, I understand--one who has seen the world?' 'Yes; Jack was a soldier's dog--was with Roberts' army in India, and in more than one battle,' replied Mary. 'I too have been in India--a bond between Jack and me,' said Colville, as he produced a biscuit from his pocket, and the dog caught it with a snap. 'He wags his dear old tail quite as if he recognised a comrade,' said Mary, laughing, while Colville accompanied her along the narrow path over which the silver birches drooped their graceful foliage. 'And so you and your sister, Miss Ellinor, are cousins of my brother-officer, Wellwood?' said Colville, after a pause, and a little abruptly, as Mary thought. 'I am sorry to say we are.' 'Why sorry--he is not half a bad fellow?' 'Well, I have no reason to be otherwise than quite indifferent on the subject of his existence. It was some family matter. Our parents were never friends, and he--he----' 'What?' 'Has chosen to forget there were such persons in the world as Ellinor and I; and considering that we have so few relations--none else nearly now----' Mary paused, and her eyes fell on the chaplets through which her slender arm was passed. 'He could never have seen you,' said Colville, earnestly; 'had he done so he would never have forgotten you, believe me; and when I tell him----' 'Tell him nothing, pray.' 'As you please, Miss Wellwood. I knew him in India, before I was in the Guards.' 'Indeed.' 'Yes; I remember his first dinner with our mess at Lahore--got screwed, as the phrase is; and how do you think he was taken to his bungalow?' 'In a cab, perhaps,' suggested Mary. 'We carried him through the lines shoulder-high upon a door, with the bugles playing the "Dead March in Saul," before him.' 'Then he is dissipated?' 'Oh--awfully--a wild fellow, in that sense.'