"Ask Devereaux," replied Polwhele, sending some spiral circles towards him, and laughing the while. "Why me?" asked Denzil, with a little annoyance of tone. "How amusingly pink you become, my boy, whenever their names are mentioned," said Polwhele; "doubtless you will be 'doing' our old Cornwall all over again with Rose, though it is evident your heart is not _there_." "Where, then?" "In Cabul, and nearer Kohistan than the Well of St. Keyne," replied Polwhele, who, as his name imports, was a Cornishman; and he added, laughingly. "What says Southey?-- But if the wife should drink of it first, God help the husband then! * * * * * * I hastened as soon as the wedding was done, And left my wife in the porch; But i'faith she had been wiser than me, For she took a bottle to church. Ah, well do I remember that old spring so famed for its virtues, arched over by old masonry, above which grow five ancient trees, the Cornish oak, the elm, and three ashes, their roots entwined like a network in the turf and moss! But to return to the Trecarrels and their tiffin to-morrow, if I escape the Ghazeeas, who are we likely to meet?" "Well, I have heard that Lady Sale--" "The wife of 'Fighting Bob' of the 13th Light Infantry!" "--Is to be there; the General Commanding too, if his health will permit it, and most likely her Majesty's Envoy to the Shah," continued Denzil, still colouring plainly and deeply. "I knew that you could tell us all about it; for, of course, the fair Rose employed you to write all the little pink notes on the perfumed paper. You seem very soft in that quarter, Denzil; but one might as well attempt to catch a meteor, my friend, as that girl's heart." "Don't say so, Jack," urged Denzil, so earnestly that both Waller and Polwhele laughed immoderately. "You will be like the little boy who wept for the moon," said the former, curling and caressing his long fair whiskers complacently. "And be assured, she has a soul far above Ensigns," added his other tormentor, for unluckily for his own peace of mind, Denzil had fallen a tender victim to the flirting Rose; "yet, I must admit, that the girl--the second Trecarrel I mean--is charming; almost handsome." "Nay, more than handsome!" added Waller emphatically, "and I must sympathize with Denzil, as I rather affect _la belle_ Mab myself." "But the old General has little more than his pay, or he would never have brought the girls so far up country else; at least, the good-natured Cantonment folks who indulge in _gup_ say so," remarked Polwhele, using the native word for "gossip." "And now I must go, for Burgoyne and I mean to study the geography of yonder confounded hills which we have to scour to-morrow; and we move off from the Cantonments in the dark--an hour before daybreak." "One glass more ere you go, Jack."