MIGNON OR, BOOTLES’ BABY A Novelette BY J. S. Winter AUTHOR OF “CAVALRY LIFE” AND “REGIMENTAL LEGENDS” * * * * * ILLUSTRATED * * * * * _Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most useful_, _after all_ DR. JOHNSON * * * * * NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 1885 ILLUSTRATIONS “Let’s go and have a look at it.” 17 Bootles, proud of his new accomplishment, lifted the child awkwardly 21 in his arms. “I can’t condemn that helpless thing to the workhouse.” 33 Mignon’s own–illustration. 37 Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm. 43 But Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of 55 harm’s way. “What a lot of medals you’ve got!” 59 In another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic doorway. 73 Lacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian lady. 83 Then with one imploring backward look she went away and left him 89 alone. He dropped into a chair and took her in his arms. 93 The swarming crowd round the other was watching a more exciting race 103 than that which they had just witnessed. A race between life and death. 107 Bootles watched them—the two things he loved best on earth. 117 CHAPTER I. IT was considerably after midnight when one of three officers seated at a whist-table in the mess-room of the Cavalry Barracks at Idleminster, where the Scarlet Lancers were quartered, called out, “Bootles, come and take a hand—there’s a good chap.” Captain Algernon Ferrers, more commonly known as “Bootles,” looked up. “I don’t mind if I do,” he said, rising and moving towards them. “What do you want me to do? Who’s my partner?” The three other men stared at one another in surprise, for Bootles was one of the best whist-players in the regiment, and in an ordinary way would as soon have thought of counting honors as of settling the questions of partners other than by cutting, except in the case of a revenge. “Why, take a card, of course, my friend,” laughed Lacy, in a ridiculously soft voice. Lacy was a recent importation from the White Dragoons, and had taken possession of the place left vacant in Bootles’s every-day life by Scott Laurie’s marriage. “Ah, yes; to be sure—cut, of course. I believe,” said Bootles, looking at the three faces before him in an uncertain way—“I believe I’ve got a headache.”