"Yes, mamma--I was yesterday gazetted to an ensigncy in the Cornish Light Infantry,--got leave from Sandhurst, and at once came right slick down here. Oh, how proud papa will be--is he not here?" "No," replied Mrs. Devereaux, faintly; "and how does your name appear in the _Gazette_?" "Here it is, mamma, dear," replied the youth, pointing to the paper he had been flourishing, and feeling proud to see his name, for the first time, in print. "'Cornish Light Infantry; Lieutenant Audley Trevelyan, from the 14th Hussars, to be lieutenant, vice Gascoigne, killed in action. Denzil Devereaux, gentleman cadet, from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, to be ensign, vice Foster, deceased.' And now, mamma, I am done at last with all the boredom of Euclid and fortification, Trigonometry, and all the rest of it." "And you will soon be done with poor mamma, too!" "Nay, mamma, dear; that can never, never be!" replied the lad, as he threw his arms round her neck and kissed away the tears that were already oozing from her long and beautiful eyelashes; "but I do so wish papa were at home--I have so much to tell, and so much to ask him!" "Denzil--Devereaux?" said the mother, ponderingly, and as if to herself. "Yes, mamma; and few fellows at Sandhurst had more marks opposite their names than Denzil Devereaux, for I worked hard that I might choose my own regiment; so I chose the 32nd because I am a kind of Cornish man, and because it was papa's old corps. Oh, how pleased he will be!" "And where is the regiment stationed now?" asked Mrs. Devereaux, in a low voice. "In India." "India?" she repeated, mechanically, as if that separation, which is but as a living death, had already begun. "I wonder who the Audley Trevelyan figuring along with me in the _Gazette_, may be. It is a pure Cornish name." His mother was weeping now, and Sybil, who had hitherto been silent, began to do so from sympathy; for already, so we have said, the pang of the coming parting was felt, and the maternal heart was wrung at the thought of a long and doubtful separation from her only son--her Denzil--whom she deemed beautiful as Apollo, and clever as the admirable Crichton; for the Overland Route had not been opened, there was no electric cable to India, and its nearest point was distant a six months' journey by sea round the Cape; and so, full of aching thoughts that her children could not share--thoughts that must be all her own till her husband returned--poor Mrs. Devereaux could only fold her son to her breast and weep, till the young man's military and boyish enthusiasm became dulled, and his naturally warm and affectionate heart grew full with a perplexity that was akin to remorse, for seeking to leave her side and push his way in the world as a soldier. Yet that was the only career his father had ever indicated to him.