with Turkish money, which has no currency in
the hospodariat. The widow sees well enough
through this neat excuse, and taps him
reprovingly with her fan, to let him see she knows
he was fibbing. She thinks that she is a match
for him now, and that he can deceive her no
more. But she lends him the money because
she has plenty more, and is by instinct a
generous, trustful, pitying woman; well aware
how her cousin is pinched there in the wild
steppe village. "C'est pour Zoë," she adds, in
a voice a little broken; and it is then that my
prince seizes her hand and covers it with kisses.

After dinner there is a dance, and as the
major does not foot it quite so gaily as his
darling, he must resign her now and then to
lighter-toed partners who do. This is how my
prince gets hold of him, over a cigarette, in the
dim conservatory, somewhat out of the way of
the revellers. He soon contrives to extract all
he did not previously know of the Belfast
speculation, and enters into it with a cordiality that
wins the major's heart entirely. His military
prejudices have not yet quite reconciled
themselves to trade; but my prince points out to
him that it is the noblest occupation of the
human mind—as managed in Russia. He offers,
with irresistible frankness, to guide the major's
first venture. He foresees that the Irish gentleman's
new and brilliant commercial idea will
quadruple his, the prince's, income—not that
he cares for such considerations, but in a
revenue so large as his it is worth attention.
Corn may be had for the asking in Russia. Irish
linen is a novelty beyond price. He, the prince,
has a very large standing crop of wheat within a
day's journey; will the major take a seat
tomorrow in his britzka and go to look at it, and
have a peep at Russia?

"Ah! est-il possible!" cries the princess,
shrilly, as she reads the major's passionate note
of farewell for three days, the next morning, in
bed. "Ah! le scélérat!" she repeats, angrily,
knowing my prince, and feeling a sure
foreboding of what is to come. But the mischief
is done. It was all managed last night as she
was dancing the cotillon with the oldest and
ugliest partner present. She had generously
chosen him in loyalty to her sober lover. That
lover is speeding now, with her false cousin,
into the trap which has been set for him with
such infinite address.

A ROLLING STONE.

WILLIAM BENTON and myself went out to
India as fellow-cadets twenty-five years ago.
In those days, the overland route was too
expensive a road to the East for young fellows
just starting in life; and so, like others of our
profession and age, we embarked in one of the
splendid sailing-vessels which used to proceed
round the Cape.

During our passage out to Bengal in the
Douglas Castle, Benton and myself occupied
the same cabin, and it is almost impossible that
two men should for four months live in a space
of ten feet by five without having a fair
appreciation of each other's merits and faults. Benton
was older than lads generally are when they go
out as cadets to India. He had been at college,
too, and had graduated; which in those days
was almost unheard of for a cadet. When we
sailed from England, he must have been about
twenty-one years of age, whilst I was barely
seventeen, and therefore, as a matter of course,
he was the leader in our small community of two.
Not that he ever presumed upon his seniority of
years, and I am bound to say that the period
of our companionship had considerable effect for
good upon me. Benton had very strong religious
views, but they were of a kind to attract and
not repel those to whom he spoke on the
subject. He told me that he had originally gone to
Oxford with the intention of entering the
Church, but that after a couple of years at the
university, he found that he could not
conscientiously subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles.

After landing at Calcutta, we travelled up
country together as far as Cawnpore, which
was my destination, Benton then pushing on to
his own station, which was about a month's
march further on. In the days I speak of there
were no railways in India, and even palkee-
gharries, or carriage-dawk, were as yet unheard
of. We had to march up country, doing
about fifteen miles each day, and pitching
our tents every night. There were some
twenty-five or thirty cadets with us, the whole
party being in charge of an officer who was
appointed to the duty of seeing the young men to
their various stations. Benton and myself kept
very much together, as we had chummed
together on the way out from England. Before
leaving Calcutta, we bought one tent between
us, and thus an intimacy was kept up until I
stopped to join the corps to which I was
appointed at Cawnpore, whilst Benton and the
rest of the party pushed on for the stations
further north. My chum and I parted with
mutual regret, but with many promises to write
to each other very often—promises which I need
hardly say were not kept.

After I had been some twelve months doing
duty at Cawnpore, I was surprised one morning
very early to see a palankeen, carried by the
usual number of bearers, enter my compound.
Out of it got my friend Benton, travelling
somewhere or other by dawk. He told me
that he had resigned the service, and was on
his way to Calcutta to embark for Europe,
as he was tired of Indian life, and especially of
the monotony of cantonments. He had left
the corps on the best of terms with everybody
in it; but said that he found himself too old to
take kindly to soldiering, and had determined to
take to something else. He remained a couple of
days with me, and then started for Calcutta, with
many expressions of good feeling, promising, as
before, that whenever his views were settled, he
would write and let me know where he could be
found.