Face to face again--at last, after all--after all--with Leslie Fotheringhame, Annabelle was thinking; his smile, his voice and presence, were fast bringing back the old and seemingly buried, yet never forgotten love, to thrill her heart and every pulse as in the bygone time! Her memory, her whole soul seemed to go back more vividly to those hours which neither he nor she had ever forgot, and now, whilst listening to his voice, she seemed to be out in the bright summer sunshine on the rippling waters of the glassy Tay, in his handsome boat with its crimson velvet cushions; she heard the plash of the sculls, the voices of the birds among the graceful silver birches; she saw the dragon-flies again whizz past, and the brown trout leap from the azure stream; and he too was in dreamland, and seemed to hear her voice; as when he first heard it singing: 'Love me always, love me ever, Said a voice low, sad and sweet; Love me always, love me ever, Memory will the words repeat.' So they parted happily, these two, with hopes to meet again, at least once, before the all-important night of the regimental ball, now close at hand. That some mysterious change had come over the once nonchalant Leslie Fotheringhame, was soon apparent to the entire mess. 'What the dickens is up now?' said Dick Freeport to Falconer, on this subject; 'I am sure there is a woman in the case; and I am sure that fellow never had a love affair since he joined the regiment, or sought peril by imploring Maud to come into the garden.' 'All the cause of his being more hardly hit now, Dick,' said Falconer, laughing. 'If it is the case it will be a horrible pity!' said Freeport, as he shut his pet, and carefully-coloured meerschaum up in its crimson velvet case with an angry snap. '"Of all the wonderful things, and there are many," says Sophocles in one of his choruses; "but none more wonderful than man."' 'Except woman, Dick, why didn't the old Athenian add,' said Cecil, laughing; 'so be assured there is a woman at the bottom of this change in Fotheringhame.' 'Shall we have her at the ball?' 'Most probably, so don't forget your magic ring with the blue stone, Dick; but you'll be hooked by a penniless girl some day, Dick!' 'A pity that will be, as manna does not fall from heaven now; but----the fact is,' continued the latter, still pursuing his surmises on the changed habits and bearing of Fotheringhame, 'that matrimony spoils a fellow for the service on one hand, and on the other, one can't think of bringing a tenderly-nurtured and high-bred lady into the meagre surroundings, and rough and round of barrack life.' 'Of course not, Dick,' replied Falconer; and yet--young though he was--he was not without his new day-dreams of a graceful and dove-like girl--of Mary Montgomerie--with tender smiling eyes and white hands, sitting opposite to him in that dingy barrack room, with its plain appurtenances.