“Oh, I am so glad!” said Penelope. “Colin--my brother--is so disappointed that you haven’t asked for any.” “Ah, but wait. I want to pick the men. To let the wrong man loose up here would be to destroy all my hopes for the frontier. There’s a fellow at the Cape named Livingstone--the man who made a long waggon-journey a year or two ago to look for some great lake the natives talked of, but found nothing, and means to try again--if I could get him I should be happy. He’s a doctor--physics the people as well as preaches to them, you see, and that’s the kind of Christianity that appeals to untutored savages like his flock and mine. Well, I asked the bishop if he could send us up a man like that, and his chaplain answered that I was evidently not aware that the Church’s care was for men’s souls, not their bodies. I wrote back that the Church must be very different from her Master if that was the case; and the answer came that in consequence of the unbecoming tone of my last communication, his lordship must decline any further correspondence with me. But that’s nothing. When I have fought for months to bring some exploit of the regiment’s to the notice of the authorities, and got an official commendation at last, I have had to insert in regimental orders a scathing rebuke of the insubordinate and unsuitable letters from me which had extorted it. But why am I telling you all this? It must have bored you horribly.” “Oh no!” cried Penelope. “I have been so much interested. And even if not, I am so glad to listen, if it is any help to you----” “Help?” he asked sharply. “Why on earth should it be a help?” “I don’t know,” answered Penelope, with some surprise. “I only thought--perhaps you don’t care to talk things over with your officers--it might be a relief to say what you think sometimes----” “I believe that’s it,” he answered; “and therefore I pour out the bottled-up nonsense of years on your devoted head, without any thought of your feelings. You should have checked me, Miss Ross. I ought to have been asking you if you adored dancing, or what the latest fashion in albums was, instead of keeping you standing while I discoursed on things as they are and should not be. Another time you must pull me up short.” CHAPTER IV. UNSTABLE.