It was now fifteen years since Mrs. Craigie had visited England, and rather more than ten since she had seen her daughter. She had been made aware that Lola's beauty far exceeded the promise of her childish years, and this she took care to make known to all the eligible bachelors of Bengal. The charms of the erstwhile pet of the 44th were eagerly discussed by men who had never seen her. Lonely writers in up-country stations brooded on her perfections, as advertised by Mrs. Craigie, and came to the conclusion that she was precisely the woman wanted to convert their secluded establishments into homes. It was difficult to get a wife of the plainest description in the India of William IV.'s day, and the competition for the hand of the unknown beauty oversea was proportionately keen. If marriage by proxy were recognised by English law Lola's fate would have been sealed long before she was aware of it. From a worldly point of view the most desirable of these ardent suitors was Sir Abraham Lumley, whom our heroine unkindly describes as a rich and gouty old rascal of sixty years, and Judge of the Supreme Court in India. We see that in that rude age it was not the custom to speak of sexagenarians as in the prime of life. To the venerable magistrate Mrs. Craigie promised her daughter in marriage. Remembering the hard times she had gone through with her first husband, the penniless ensign, and forgetting, as we do when past thirty, how those hardships were lightened by love, she no doubt felt that she had acted extremely well by her daughter. Women's ideas on the subject of marriage are usually absolutely conventional, and since unions between men of sixty and girls of eighteen are not condemned by the official exponents of religion, you would never have persuaded Mrs. Craigie that they were immoral. Outside the Decalogue (and the Police Regulations) all things are lawful. Well pleased with herself, the still handsome Anglo-Indian lady sailed for home in the early part of the year 1837, proposing to bring her daughter back with her to the bosom of Abraham.