“I would try,” said Penelope humbly. It was before Miss Nightingale’s days, and the suggestion sounded very strange to her. Major Keeling stood looking at her, until his black brows relaxed suddenly. “All right, you can come,” he said. “And,” he added, as he left the room, “I’ll allow you a camel apiece after all.” “What an interesting-looking man Major Keeling is!” said Penelope to her friend the next morning. “Some people think so. I don’t particularly admire that kind of swarthy picturesqueness myself,” was the meditative answer. “I won’t praise him to her on any account,” said Lady Haigh to herself. “It’s not that so much as his look and his voice. Don’t you know----” “Why, you are as bad as the girls at Bombay. One of them told me they all perfectly doated on dear Major Keeling; he was just like a dear delightful bandit in an opera.” “Really, Elma!” Penelope’s graceful head was lifted with dignity, and Lady Haigh, foreseeing a coolness, hastened to make amends. “I was only in fun. We don’t doat, do we, Pen? or gush, or anything of that sort. But it was only the happiest chance his letting you come with us. If he had caught you singing Tennyson, or your dear Miss Barrett--Mrs Browning, is it? what does it signify?--there would have been no hope for you. But it happened to be Scott, and that conquered him at once. They say he knows all the poems by heart, and recites them before a battle. Dugald heard him doing it at Umarganj, at any rate. The troopers like it, because they think he is muttering spells to discomfit the enemy. Isn’t it romantic?” “How funny!” was Penelope’s disappointing comment. “He was very fond of Byron once, but he has given him up for conscience’ sake,” pursued Lady Haigh. “For conscience’ sake?” “Yes; Byron was a man of immoral life, and his works are not fit for a Christian’s reading.” “He must be a very good man, I suppose. I shouldn’t have guessed----” “That he was good? No; he might be mysteriously wicked, from his looks, mightn’t he? But I believe he is really good, and he has the most extraordinary influence over the natives. Dugald was telling me last night that at Alibad they seemed inclined to receive him as a saint--as if his reputation had gone before him, you know. He never drinks anything but water, for one thing; and he doesn’t dance, and he never speaks to a lady if he can help it---- Oh, Pen, were you very much astonished by the catechism he put you through last night?” “Yes,” admitted Penelope. “He asked me such strange things, and in such a solemn voice. I should have liked time to think before answering.”