"Now don't be huffed, darling!--of course you have. But, you see, it came as pat with him as if he had known me all my life: and I'll engage that he has another as pat for the next woman he meets." "I don't doubt it," agreed her spouse: "and if that's what you admire, perhaps you would like me to compliment and even kiss every pretty girl in the place. There's no saying what I can't do if I try." "_Please_ don't be a goose, dear! I never said a Volunteer wasn't more comfortable _to live with_. Those professionals are here to-day and gone tomorrow--sometimes even sooner." "Not to mention," added the Doctor, more than half-seriously, "that life with them is dreadfully insecure." "Oh! I would never _seriously_ advise a friend of mine to marry a regular soldier. Hector dear, to be left a widow must be terrible! . . . But you _did_ deserve to be teased, for never saying a word about my tea-party. How do you think it went off? And haven't you a syllable of praise for the way I had polished the best urn? Why, you might have seen your face in it!" "So I might, my love, no doubt: but my eyes were occupied in following _you_." Yes, the day had been a wonderful success, as Captain Pond remarked after waving good-bye to his visitor and watching his chaise out of sight upon the Plymouth road. The Colonel's manner had been so affable, his appreciation of Looe and its scenery and objects of interest so whole-hearted, he had played his part in the day's entertainment with so unmistakable a zest! "We are lucky," said Captain Pond. "Suppose, now, he had turned out to be some cross-grained martinet . . . the type is not unknown in the regular forces." "He was intelligent, too," chimed in the Doctor,--"unlike some soldiers I have met whose horizon has been bounded by the walls of their barrack-square. Did you observe the interest he took in my account of our Giant's Hedge? He fully agreed with me that it must be pre-Roman, and allowed there was much to be said for the theory which ascribes it to the Druids." Alas for these premature congratulations! They were to be rudely shattered within forty-eight hours, and by a letter addressed to Captain Pond in Colonel Taubmann's handwriting:--