as they sat down to table, answered the expectation in Belle's face. "The Colonel never dines on ball nights, he goes to mess. You see, the girls bobbing up and down annoy him, and it is beastly to see people bolting their food in curl-papers."

"I'd speak grammar if I were you," retorted Mildred Van Milder, flushing up. Her fringe was a perpetual weariness to her, sometimes demanding the sacrifice of a dance in order to allow hair-curlers to do their perfect work.

"And I wouldn't wear a fringe like a poodle," growled Dick; whereat Mrs. Stuart plaintively wondered whence he got his manners, and wished he was more like her own boys.

Poodles or no poodles, when the dancing-party appeared ready for the fray, Belle could hardly believe her eyes. The sallow-faced girls of the morning in their limp cotton wrappers were replaced by admirable copies of the latest French fashion-prints. Their elaborately-dressed hair, large dark eyes, and cream-coloured skins (to which art had lent a soft bloom denied by nature under Indian skies), joined to the perfect fit of their gowns, compelled attention. Indeed, when Maud, to try the stability of a shoe, waltzed round the room with her brother, Belle was startled at her own admiration for their lithe, graceful, sensuous beauty.

"I'll tell you what it is," cried Mabel, the eldest of the three; "you'll have a ripping good time tonight, Maudie. I never saw you look so cheek." She meant chic, but the spelling was against her. As for Mrs. Stuart, she appeared correctly attired in black satin and bugles. The girls saw to that, suppressing with inexorable firmness the good lady's hankering after gayer colours and more flimsy stuffs.

Left alone with Cousin Dick, Belle pretended to read, while in reality she was all ears for the sound of returning wheels. It was nearly ten o'clock, and, to her simple imagination, time for her father to come home. The clock struck, and Dick, who had been immersed in a book at the further corner of the room, laid it aside, and bringing out a chessboard began to set the men. He paused, frowned, passed both hands through his rough red hair, and finally asked abruptly if she played. A brief negative made him shift the pieces rapidly to a problem, and no more was said. Again the clock struck, and this time Dick came and stood before her. He was a middle-sized, broad-shouldered youth about her own age, with a promise of strength in face and figure. "You had better go to bed," he said still more abruptly. "The Colonel won't be home till morning. It isn't a bit of good your waiting for him."

This was the second time that he had stepped in to her thoughts, as it were, and Belle resented the intrusion. "Don't let me keep you up," she replied. "I'd just as soon be alone."

"Then you'll have your wish, I expect," he answered coolly, as he swept the chessmen together and left the room.

Some two hours after Belle woke from sleep to the sound of an impatient voice. "Bearer! Bearer! peg lao, quick! Hang it all, Raby! you must, you shall stop and give me my revenge. You've the most cursed good luck--"

"Father!" She rose from her chair with cheeks flushed like those of a newly-awakened child. The tall, fair young man who stood beside Colonel Stuart turned at the sound of her voice, then touched his companion on the arm. "Some one is speaking to you."

"God bless my soul, child! I thought you were at the ball. Why didn't you go?" His tone was kind, if a little husky, and he stretched a trembling hand towards her.

"I waited to see you, father," she replied, laying hers on his arm with a touch which was a caress.

The tall young man smiled to himself. "Will you not introduce me to your daughter, Colonel?" he said with a half-familiar bow towards Belle.

Colonel Stuart looked from one to the other as if he had never seen either of them before. "Introduce you,--why not? Belle, this is John Raby: a fellow who has the most infernal good luck in creation."

"I have no inclination to deny the fact at this moment," interposed the other, bowing again.

The implied compliment was quite lost on Belle, whose eyes and ears were for her father only. "I waited for you," she said with a little joyous laugh, "and fell asleep in my chair!"

Once more the Colonel looked from one to the other. The mere fact of his daughter's presence was in his present state confusing, but that she should have been waiting for him was bewildering in the extreme. How many years ago was it that another slim girl in white had gazed on him with similar adoration?

"You had better go to bed now," he said with almost supernatural profundity. "Good night. God bless you."

"Let me stay, please, father. I'm not a bit tired," she pleaded.

He stood uncertain, and John Raby drew out his watch with a contemptuous smile. "Half-past one, Colonel; I must be off."

"Hang it all!" expostulated the other feebly. "You can't go without my revenge. It ain't fair!"

"You shall have it sometime, never fear. Good night, Miss Stuart; we can't afford to peril such roses by late hours."

Again his words fell flat, their only result being that he looked at her with a flash of real interest. When he had gone Belle knelt beside her father's chair, timidly asking if he was angry with her for sitting up.

"Angry!" cried the Colonel, already in a half doze. "No, child! certainly not. Dear! dear! how like you are to your poor mother." The thought roused him, for he stood up shaking his head mournfully. "Go to bed, my dear. We all need rest. It has been a trying day, a very trying day."

Belle, as she laid her head on the pillow, felt that it had been so indeed; yet she was not disappointed with it. She was too young to criticise kindness, and they had all been kind, very kind; even Charlie had forgotten his first fright; and so she fell asleep, smiling at the remembrance of the old ayah's bandy legs.

CHAPTER III.

Early morning in the big bazaar at Faizapore. So much can be said; but who with pen alone could paint the scene, or who with brush give the aroma, physical and moral, which, to those familiar with the life of Indian streets, remains for ever the one indelible memory? The mysterious smell indescribable to those who know not the East; the air of sordid money-getting and giving which pervades even the children; the gaily-dressed, chattering stream of people drifting by; but from the grey-bearded cultivator come on a lawsuit from his village, to the sweeper, besom in hand, propelling the black flood along the gutter, the only subject sufficiently interesting to raise one voice above the universal hum, is money. Even the stalwart herdswomen with their kilted skirts swaying at each free bold step, their patchwork bodices obeying laws of decency antipodal to ours, even they, born and bred in the desert, talk noisily of the ghee they are bringing to market in the russet and black jars poised on their heads; and if ghee be not actually money, it is inextricably mixed up with it in the native mind.

All else may fade from the memory; the glare of sunlight, the transparent shadows, the clustering flies and children round the cavernous sweetmeat-shops, the glitter of brazen pots, and the rainbow-hued overflow from the dyers' vats staining the streets like a reflection of the many-tinted cloths festooned to dry overhead. Even the sharper contrasts of the