Betty made no reply. She thought it would be better to express her gratitude through George’s mother! She wore the bangle constantly, for it was a plain, and what Mrs. Redmond termed, “every-day affair.” Nevertheless, one afternoon, it attracted Dr. Moran’s notice, as she sat before Miss Dopping’s fire, stroking the old hound, and he smoked a Trichy cheroot. Miss Dopping’s visitors might smoke (gossips said that she smoked herself! but this was not true, but I will not deny that now and then--_only_ now and then--she took a pinch of snuff). Dr. Moran had been in the army, and had seen service in India, had tended the wounded after Chillianwallah, and been several times under fire, though no one would suspect it. He was a very silent, spare, reserved old bachelor, who had a small private fortune, and lived in Ballingoole, because he had been born there. He was eccentric like his neighbour Miss Dopping; wore an apron at home to protect his trousers from the fire, made his own tea, mended his own shirts, spent a large portion of his income on literature and tobacco--and was ever haunted by the fear that _Maria Finny would marry him_. “What is that thing you have on your wrist?” he enquired. “Let me see it. It looks like an Indian bangle,” stretching out a bony brown hand. “And so it is,” replied Betty, removing it and offering it to him as she spoke. Dr. Moran slowly put on his glasses, and examined the ornament as critically as Belle had done. “Do you know what this writing means, young lady?” he asked presently, looking keenly over his spectacles. “No, I was not even sure that it _was_ writing.” “It is one word in Urdu letters.” “Can you make it out?” “Yes--easily enough, and if the bangle was given to you by a young man, it means a great deal. This word ‘Tumhara,’ interpreted into English, is simply ‘_Thine_ alone.’” Miss Dopping--who knew the donor of the bangle--coughed sharply, and glanced at Betty, with an extraordinary amount of expression in her little beady eyes. She even so far forgot herself as to wink, and Betty coloured to the roots of her hair. She had been a wee bit envious of all those foreign envelopes with green stamps; not that she did not trust George with all her heart, and he had said that he would not write. Still, there had been a curious, uneasy, unsatisfactory sensation, that, if not exactly jealousy, was jealousy’s first cousin, and now, after all, her precious gold bangle and its message was worth a thousand of Belle’s letters. “So that’s the way of it,” exclaimed Miss Dopping after Betty had left, “and I am glad of it,” for she knew George well, and he was one of her prime favourites, with his handsome face and pleasant manners. Many a time she had rapped for him, from her window, and many a visit he had paid her, and now she came to think of it, he always drew the conversation round to Betty. “I knew she wouldn’t look at Ghosty Moore,” she added triumphantly.