If so, 'twere well to be prepared. All this flashed upon my mind with the usual rapidity of thought; but I was too much interested by my new friends to attend to him then, and, ere our interview was over, he had disappeared upon the way to Guildford--the road _I was to pursue_. "Zounds! I must look out," thought I, "or there may be a blank in Lindsay's muster-roll to-morrow." CHAPTER XIII. THE HANDKERCHIEF. "It is, indeed, singular that we should meet again, and so soon, too!" said the elder lady, who, notwithstanding the silver tinge amid her auburn hair, still bore unmistakable traces of a beautiful person; "your regiment is, I think, a Horse Grenadier one?" "Yes, madam." "The Guards?" "No--it is the Scots Greys, or Second Dragoons--yet we boast ourselves 'Second to None.'" "A proud vaunt," said she, smiling at my manner. She was silent for a few moments, during which I was conscious that her daughter was observing me with some interest. As our officers did not then wear epaulettes, but simply a silver aiguilette, her next observation was an awkward one for me. "You are a captain, I hope?" said she, smiling. "Nay--I am too young," I replied, with a hesitating manner and a glowing cheek. "Yet Wolfe, whom I once knew, was a colonel at twenty. Then you are a cornet?" I felt the blood rushing to my temples--yet wherefore should I have blushed "for honest poverty?" "Curiosity is the privilege of our sex," said the young lady, coming to my rescue; "thus mamma is most anxious to know to whose bravery we owed our safety." "Madam, I have not the honour to be more than a private trooper," said I, with a bearing of pride that had something stern in it. Mamma did not lose her presence of mind, though the colour in her daughter's cheeks grew deeper, but replied-- "All, indeed! I believed you by your bearing to be an officer." She drew her head within the carriage. "I thank you, madam; I was not always what I am to-day," said I, sadly. "And now, my good fellow, if you will favour me with your name, Colonel Preston shall be duly informed, by letter, of your courage." There was another pause, during which I shortened my reins, and was turning my horse, when the winning voice of her daughter, which had a singularly sweet chord in it, arrested me, as she said-- "You belong, you state, to the Greys?" "Yes." "Do you know a soldier named Gauntlet--Basil Gauntlet?" It was now _my_ turn to feel confusion and extreme surprise. "Yes; but how has he the honour, the happiness to be known to you?" I inquired, with growing astonishment, while gazing into her clear, bright eyes. "I have an interest--have we not _both_ an interest in him, mamma?" said she, with confusion. "You--in a poor unfriended trooper?" I exclaimed. "He is from our neighbourhood--that is all," replied the young lady, with a hesitating manner.