'Poor child!' said Dalton, caressing the girl's soft and silky hair, while her tiny fingers toyed with a ring he wore; 'she is quite a little beauty, but she could not fail to be so.' 'You are pleased to be complimentary, Captain Dalton,' said Mrs. Trelawney, who seemed more pleased with his admiration of the child than of herself, and a little sigh escaped her. There was now, as when she sang, a great tenderness in her voice, a kind of plaintive ring in it that stirred Dalton's heart curiously, and when she asked him question upon question, with a considerable depth of interest, as to the places he had seen, the adventures that had befallen him, the battles in which he had shared, and so forth, he found himself gradually unfolding to her all his past interests, his present plans, his future hopes--if, indeed, he had any; while she listened with her inquiring eyes, half veiled by their drooping lids, fixed on his, her bosom heaving, and a white hand swaying her feather fan mechanically to and fro. 'And now tell me, Captain Dalton,' said she suddenly, as he paused; 'but you will think me very curious--in all these years of military wandering, how you never thought of marriage?' 'A strange question!' said he. 'And a leading one, you may think,' she resumed, laughing merrily; 'but we widows are privileged people--well?' 'Never!' said he, in a low, husky voice, and, through the bronze the Indian sun had cast upon his cheek, she could see the scarlet blush that mantled there, and, rather shrinking from the turn their conversation had taken, he drew back, and his place was instantly assumed by Jerry Wilmot, who plunged at once into a conversation, which he conducted in a low and confidential tone, while playing with her fan, of which he had possessed himself. Jerry Wilmot was eminently a handsome fellow. From his well set-up soldierly head to his slender well-moulded feet no fault could be found with him; but though his manner and conversation were full of that subtle flattery and earnestness which, if it does not make its way to a woman's heart, at least appeals to her vanity, he made no progress apparently with Mrs. Trelawney, who on this occasion listened to him with less patience than usual, and without even her generally amused smile. 'Are all men precisely alike to you?' whispered Jerry. 'In the main they are.' 'This evening too?' 'Yes--decidedly so,' she replied, with a side glance. 'Now please give me my fan, Jerry, and don't break it, as you so often do.' CHAPTER VI. 'THE OLD, OLD STORY.' On this afternoon Alison felt, with pleasant confidence, that she was 'looking her best,' dressed to perfection, and had been equal to the occasion. She wore a closely-fitting costume of lustreless black silk, edged everywhere with rare old white lace that had been her mother's; her hair appeared more golden than brown in the sunshine, while seeming to retain the latter in its silky coils.