He spoke to the earl, who rubbed his hands and nodded. The young first violin tossed his chestnut-coloured mane on one side with a gesture of irritation. Ruth reappeared with a chair in either hand. They were oldfashioned and rather heavy, being built of solid oak, but she carried them lightly and gracefully. Ferdinand started forward and attempted to relieve her of their burden. At first she resisted, but he insisting upon the point she yielded. The young Ferdinand was less graceful than he had meant to be in the carriage of the chairs, and Ruth looked at Reuben with a smile so faint as scarcely to be perceptible. Reuben with knitted brows pored above his music, and the girl returned to her old place and her old attitude by the apple-tree.

Ferdinand, having the placing of the chairs in his own hands, took up a position in which, without being obtrusively near, he was close enough to address her if occasion should arise, as he was already fairly resolved it should. The three elders were most drolly provincial, to his mind, and their accent was positively barbarous to his ears. Reuben was less provincial to look at, but to Mr. de Blacquaire's critical eye the young man was evidently not a gentleman. He had not heard him speak as yet, and could well afford to make up his mind without that. Nobody but a boor could have employed Reuben's tailor or his shoemaker. As for the girl, she looked like a lily in a kitchen garden, a flower among the coarse and commonplace things of everyday consumption. It would be a deadly pity, he thought, if she should have an accent like the rest. Her dress was perfectly refined and simple, and Ferdinand. guessed pretty shrewdly that this was likely to be due to her own handiwork and fancy. "What a delightful, quaint old garden you have here, to be sure," he said.

With a perfect naturalness she raised a warning palm against him, and at that instant the quartette party began their performance. She had not even turned an eye in his direction, and he was a little piqued. The hand which had motioned him to silence was laid now on the gnarled old apple-tree, and she rested her ripe cheek against it. Her eyes began to dream at the music, and it was evident that her forgetfulness of the picturesque young gentleman beside her was complete and unaffected. The picturesque young gentleman felt this rather keenly. The snub was small enough in all conscience, but it was a snub, and he was sensitive, even curiously sensitive, to that kind of thing. And he was not in the habit of being

snubbed. He was accustomed to look for the signs of his own power to please amongst young women who moved in another sphere.

It was a very very small affair, but then it is precisely these very small affairs which rankle in a certain sort of mind. Ferdinand dismissed it, but it spoiled his music for the first five minutes.

The Earl of Barfield was one of those people to whom music is neither more nor less than noise. He loved quiet and hated noise, and the four interpreters of the melody and harmony of Beethoven afforded him as much delight as so many crying children would have done. It had been a joke against him in his youth that he had once failed to distinguish between God Save the King and the Old Hundredth. Harmony and melody here were alike divine in themselves, and were more than respectably rendered, and he sat and suffered under them in his young friend's behoof like a hero. They bored him unspeakably, and the performance lasted half an hour. When it was all over he beat his withered white hands together once or twice, and smiled in self-gratulation that his time of suffering was over.

"Admirably rendered!" cried Ferdinand. "Admirably admirably rendered. Will you forgive me just a hint, sir?" He addressed Sennacherib. "A leetle more light and shade! A performance less level in tone."

"P'r'aps the young man 'll show us how to do it," said Sennacherib, in a dry, mock humility, handing his fiddle and bow towards the critic.

The critic accepted them with a manner charmingly unconscious of the intended satire, and walked round the table until he came behind Reuben, when he turned back the music for a leaf or two.

"Here, for example," he said, and tucking the instrument beneath his chin played through a score of bars with a certain exaggerated chic which awakened Sennacherib's derision.

"What dost want to writhe i' that fashion for?" he demanded. "Dost find thine inwards twisted? It's a pretty tone, though," he allowed. "The young man can fiddle. Strikes me, young master, as thee'dst do better at the Hopera than the House o' Commons. Tek a fool's advice and try."

Ferdinand smiled with genuine goodhumour. This insolent old personage began to amuse him.

"Really, I don't know, sir," he answered. "Perhaps I may do pretty well in the House of Commons, if you will be good enough to

try me. One can't please everybody, but I promise to do my best."

"The best can do no more," said Fuller, in a mellow, peacemaking kind of murmur. "The best can do no more."

"I've no mind for that theer whisperin' and shoutin' in the course of a piece of music," said Sennacherib. "Pianner is planner, and forte is forte, but theer's no call to strain a man's ears to listen to the one, nor to drive him deaf with t'other. the young gentleman 'ud an' gi'e us a lesson now and then we'd

tek it."

Same time, if Same time, if like to come

"I'm not able to give you lessons, sir," returned Mr. de Blacquaire, with unshaken good-humour, "but if you will allow me to take one now and then by listening, I shall be delighted."

"Nothin' agen that, is theer, Mr. Fuller?" demanded Sennacherib.

"Allays pleased to see the young gentleman," responded Fuller.

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"When may I come to listen to you again, gentlemen?" asked Ferdinand. His manner was full of bonhomie now, and had no trace of affectation. It pleased everybody but Reuben, who had conceived a distaste for him from the first. Perhaps, if he had not placed his chair so near to Ruth, and had regarded her less often and with a less evident admiration, the young man might have liked him better.

"Well," said Fuller, "we are here pretty nigh every evenin' while the fine weather lasts. We happen to be here this afternoon

"Good day, my lord," said Reuben, rather gloomily. He had not spoken until now, and Ferdinand had wished to note the accent. There was none to note in the few words he uttered.

"Your little girl is growing into a woman, Fuller," said his lordship.

"That's the way wi' most gells, my lord," said Fuller.

"Good afternoon, Miss Ruth," said the old nobleman, nodding and smiling.

"Good afternoon, my lord," said Ruth. Ferdinand's attentive ear noted again the absence of the district accent. He removed his cap and bowed to her.

"Good afternoon. I may come to-morrow evening, then?" The query was addressed to her, but she did not answer it, either by glance or word. She had answered his bow and turned away before he had spoken. "Ay!" said Fuller, "come and welcome."

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He bowed and smiled all round and walked away with his lordship. He turned at the garden door for a final glance at the pretty girl, but she had her back turned upon him, and was leaning both hands on her father's shoulder.

HE 40th Regiment, in which I was then a subaltern, arrived at Candahar in October, 1841. We had been encamped at Quetta since the month of February, and our first experiences of Afghanistan were by no means pleasant. During the six months we were at Quetta, the battalion, which on its arrival at that place numbered 1,000 effective rank and file, lost no less than a hundred men and three officers, nearly all of whom died from a very virulent kind of dysentery, said to be brought on by the water of the locality, which was chiefly composed of melted snow from the mountains. When we arrived at Quetta in February, there were not more than two per cent. of the whole corps on the sick list. But when we started to march for Candahar in the following September, at least a fourth of the regiment had to be carried on doolies, or camels, and quite as many more were allowed to get along on foot as best they could, without arms or accoutrements, being all what in England would be called out-door patients of the regimental hospital. In the ranks, and fit for duty, we had not more than five hundred men out of the thousand we had mustered a few months previously. The march to Candahar lasted about thirty days. Our commanding officer, acting on the advice of the medical men, ordered that the regiment should halt every fourth day, and the result of this judicious arrangement, together with the climate, which improved more and more as we got further to the north, was that nearly all the men who had started from Quetta, more or less sick, were fit for duty, and able to take their place in the ranks before we arrived at Candahar. When our corps

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arrived at the latter place, we found, to our great delight, that cantonments, such as they were, had been provided for us. We had all been upwards of a year under canvas, and a wing of the regiment, that had preceded the other half of the corps, had been for more than two years dwellers in tents. It is only those who have gone through a prolonged trial of the kind that can appreciate the blessing of having a roof over their heads, and being surrounded with stone, instead of canvas walls. Our cantonments at Candahar were very much the reverse of what can be termed luxurious; they had been built for Shah Sooja's native troops, and could boast of not even the most common conveniences of Indian life. But the very fact of every officer having a room to himself, and of the men having space to hang up their arms and stow away their other belongings, made them belongings, made them appear veritable palaces to us. At Candahar we found none save Bengal troops. General Nott was in command of the garrison and the division. The latter consisted of the 2nd, 16th, 42nd and 43rd Bengal Native Infantry, together with some few local corps, raised for the service of Shah Sooja, the king whom we had placed on the throne of Afghanistan, and who eventually cost us so much in money, men, and prestige, by trying to maintain him as ruler of that country. The 40th had since its arrival in India, some ten or more years previous to the period I am writing of, served in the Bombay Presidency, and was looked upon as a regular Bombay regiment. But nothing could exceed the kindness and good fellowship of the Bengal officers, amongst whom we were now thrown. General Nott in particular was most kind and considerate in the manner he received us, and the invitations to different messes, as well as the F 2