These were the encouraging suggestions addressed to Sir Charles by his most intimate friends, who encouraged him still more by their narratives of how Lottie Seton tossed her head and declared that Charlie Somers had been waiting all along for some rich girl to drop into his mouth. He had always had an _arrière pensée_, she cried (whatever that might be), and had never been at all amusin’ at the best of times. He was very amusin’ now, however, with Stella’s letter in his pocket and this absorbing question to discuss. The whole regiment addressed itself with all the brain it possessed to the consideration of the subject, which, of course, was so much the more urgent in consequence of the orders under which it lay. To go or not to go to India, that was the rub, as Charlie had said. Stella only complicated the question, which had been under discussion before. He did not want to go; but then, on the other hand, if he remained at home, his creditors would be rampant and he would be within their reach, which would not be the case if he went to India. And India meant double pay. And if it could be secured that Stella’s father should send an expedition after them to bring them back within a year, then going to India with Stella as a companion would be the best fun in the world. To go for a year was one thing, to go as long as the regiment remained, doing ordinary duty, was quite another. Everybody whom he consulted, even Lady Jane, though she began to be a little frightened by the responsibility, assured him that old Tredgold would never hold out for a year. Impossible! an old man in shaky health who adored his daughter. “Doubt if he’ll give you time to get on board before he’s after you,” Algy said. “You’ll find telegrams at Suez or at Aden or somewhere,” said another; and a third chaunted (being at once poetical and musical, which was not common in the regiment) a verse which many of them thought had been composed for the occasion: “Come back, come back,” he cried in grief Across the stormy water, “And I’ll forgive your Highland chief, My daughter, O my daughter!” “Though Charlie ain’t a Highland chief, you know,” said one of the youngsters. “If it had been Algy, now!”