This was strong language: yet it would seem now that, amid the whirl of fashionable life at Chillingham Park, balls, routs, dinners, suppers, and reviews, the race, and the hunting-field dotted with red coats, she had been compelled, or had allowed herself, to forget me—I, who thought of her only. And amid that more brilliant vortex, the world of London life, the Queen’s Court, the royal drawing-rooms, the crowded parks, the gaieties of Rotten Row and the Lady’s Mile, the splendours of the opera, and the wonders of the Derby, it seemed likely enough that a poor devil of a lancer serving in the East was to be forgotten, and for ever too! From such a reverie I would be roused by Jocelyn, Sir Harry Scarlett, or some other of ours, exclaiming— "Look out! By Jove! there’s a Russian vedette!" Then through my field-glass I might discern, between me and the sky, a Cossack in a fur cap, riding along the green ridge in the distance, with his knees up to his girdle, his back bent, his lance-head glinting in the sunshine, and the snub nose of his Calmuck visage planted almost between the drooping ears of his shaggy little horse, as he uttered a shrill whoop and galloped away. "We seem to be coming closer and closer to those fellows," said the colonel. "Every moment I expect to see Cardigan with the advanced guard draw the cover, and receive a dose of grape from flying artillery." "And those vedettes seem to be thrown forward from a large force, colonel," said Studhome. "I have already detected five or six different uniforms." "Yes, Jack. So I would advise you to write a dutiful letter to your friends." "Why, colonel?" said our adjutant, laughing. "Because we shall certainly be under fire to-morrow." To-morrow proved to be the day of the Alma—an eventful day for many. The approach of danger made all who were in health grow high in spirit and hilarity. "Rather different work this from the gravelled yards at Canterbury and Maidstone," said Wilford, joining us at a canter, to share a little conversation. "Ay, Fred," said the colonel; "and very different from our daily service of a year or so ago." "At Allahabad and Agra—eh?" "Yes. Lying half the day on an easy _fauteuil_, in a silk shirt and cotton drawers, fanned by an Indian girl; or cooled by a punkah, and guarded by mosquito-curtains, making up our books on the Meerut race meeting; calculating the rising or falling of the thermometer, and studying the ’Army List?’" (Another year or two was to see very different work cut out at Cawnpore and Delhi for our Indian comrades.) Five nights spent amid the mud of our bivouac had somewhat tarnished the finery of our lancer uniforms. Already the bullion of our large epaulettes was crushed and torn, our gorgeous lace defaced and frayed; but our horses were all in high condition, and our arms and appointments bright enough to have satisfied even Count Tilly himself.