'I have no wish to pry into your secrets, Captain Dalton, nor to act the part of a Father Confessor, so pray don't confide in me,' said Mrs. Trelawney, with a--for her--curious hardness in her usually sweet voice. 'I have read somewhere that life itself, from the cradle to the grave, is but a kind of gloaming hour, wherein mortals grope dimly after happiness, and find it not.' 'I would that the happiness of my future life lay in your hands, Mrs. Trelawney,' said Dalton, with an expression of eye and tone of voice there was no mistaking. Mrs. Trelawney did not reply, but she smiled with a curiously mingled expression of triumph, pleasure, and, strange to say, disdain, rippling over her bright face--emotions to which we shall ere long have the key. Her cheeks flushed, her lips curved with her smile, and for a moment her whole mien was that of a young girl delighted with flattery. Dalton was about to say something more, when the sudden disdain that replaced the first expression prevented him, and she said, laughingly, 'I can give the ladies a capital addition to the creed, Captain Dalton.' 'What is it?' 'Never to love any man, but make all men love you; as the song has it, "Love not--the thing you love may change;" but here come Miss Cheyne and Captain Goring.' 'A strange woman--an enigma, indeed,' thought Dalton, who had an unpleasant suspicion that she was secretly deriding the avowal he had, perhaps, been on the point of making. 'Oh, Alison,' she said, suddenly, 'you remember Bella Chevenix, the handsome, dashing girl, who always wears rich dresses, but of green or grey tints, a muslin fichu, with a yellow rose in it, and so forth. You have heard what has happened, I suppose?' 'That she was engaged, or nearly so, to Colonel Graves?' 'Yes--but he has behaved disgracefully.' 'How?' 'What do you think her family found out?' she asked, addressing Dalton, to his surprise. 'That he was no colonel at all, perhaps,' said he. 'Oh, worse than that.' 'Worse!--what could be worse?' 'I do not care to think, Mrs. Trelawney--not knowing the parties--that he was a criminal, perhaps.' 'Worse still.' 'Good heavens, Laura!' exclaimed Alison. 'And he proposed for her?' 'Yes; was it not horrible, Captain Dalton?' 'Don't appeal to me,' he replied, abruptly. 'Bella was at a ball in Willis's Rooms, dancing with Wilmot, of Captain Dalton's regiment, while the colonel was there _vis-à-vis_ with some one else, and Jerry, in the most casual way, asked her if she knew Mrs. Graves. Bella thought he was talking nonsense, but it turned out to be truth, as there is a Mrs. Graves; but, as Bella is a professional beauty, luckily, her affections were not too deeply engaged. However, such affairs are a warning to us all in society. Don't you think so, Captain Dalton?'