THE COLONEL'S ANSWER.

Their love permitted and acknowledged, to Gillian Lamond and Dove it seemed more than ever a fact and reality, and how happy they were in their young hearts, which were filled with gratitude to Mr. Gainswood. But the latter still viewed their engagement with undisguised coldness; there was no doubt about that feature in the affair. He had abruptly consented to it, but with one sternly impressed proviso, that it should be kept as secret as possible, admitted to none, denied to all, till the proper time came, as such arrangements were better not to be canvassed by any coterie of girls, and old female gossips, till the time came, and that had but one meaning full of joy to the pair as they heard him and gave their promise; but another time came when Mr. Gainswood rubbed his hands and ground his teeth with pleasure at his own foresight in this matter.

  The Indian mails were watched, and the Colonel's reply anxiously looked for by all; but Gillian had a perfect and perplexing consciousness that since that day on which the engagement had been permitted, the temper of Mr. Gainswood, and his general bearing towards himself, had not been improved. He knew not what to make of it, but trusted vaguely to his father's letter for explaining all.

To his unfortunate employés his manner became almost savage at times, as upon them he could vent his secret wrath unfettered.

  Weeks passed on, and no letter came from India; the lovers counted the days, and yet, with them, the time passed happily enough and fast too; equally quickly did they pass with busy Mr. Gainswood, for when not drudging among the drudges in his spacious offices, laying snares for clients, bullying his debtors, toadying or doing something equally dignifying to further his own interests, he was attending religious meetings or others, with reference to which his name was sure to be reported prominently by the provincial press.

  One morning, among many others a letter from India—the expected letter was laid on his desk. He uttered a fierce snort, or malediction, but under his breath, as he snatched it up, and by legal force of habit, on glancing at the postmark, he saw that he should have had it the day before.

"Whose duty was it to prepare these letters for me—yours, or Mr. Smith's?" he sternly asked one of his clerks.

"Either Mr. Smith or I, sir—but I left it at the bottom of the letter-box by mistake, and please—"

"You and Mr. Smith," he thundered out to the trembling lad, "may go to the cashier, get what is due to you, and quit my service. I never forgive a dereliction of duty—go!"

   The unfortunate fellow saw it was hopeless to urge anything, and slunk away, with a sick heart, no doubt. He was one of those who, from day to day, and year to year, plodded on, under-paid and over-worked, till every hope had died away, and every higher aspiration faded out amid the wearying process of the dullest labour with its ceaseless monotony.

  And now for the letter of the Colonel, which was dated from Calcutta, and some time back, as it had been following him "by dawk" for several weeks, as he came down country. It was a manly and soldier-like letter, filled with the warmest profession of regard for Gainswood, and intense gratitude to him for the care and affection bestowed by that personage on his only son, the last left him by the effects and contingencies of life and service in India.

"The proposed marriage of which you write me," continued Colonel Lamond, "is quite what I wish should be, and is in every way the fulfilment of a hope that often occurred to me, though I never hinted of it. The two sisters, our dear dead wives, loved each other with great tenderness, and for both their sakes, as well as Gillian's, I shall dearly love your daughter Dove. I often think of her now, when all duty is past, and I am left over brandy-pawnee and a cheroot in my lonely bungalow. I remember her well when she was a sweet wee birdie indeed, only some three or four years old, and when I could little think she would ever become a daughter to me. Kiss her for my sake, and say I shall bring her a suite of gold ornaments, the best that Delhi can produce and that a queen might wear.

"Before that time, brother Gainswood, I have some work cut out for me. I have to take command of a little mixed force of all arms, destined to act against some of the hill tribes that are marauding near the Bhotan frontier. This will close my long service in India, and luckily it will only be a flash in the pan, as we used to say. The moment it is over, and the field force is broken up, I shall start for Europe to figure at the marriage, so the youngsters must wait a few months for the sake of an old man who loves them well; and so, God bless you all!"

Then followed a postscript about the repurchase of Avon-na-gillian, which the lawyer read with bitter impatience, and muttered with a saturnine smile on his thin lips.

  "Long ere this he has been on the march towards Bhotan, where bullets and poisoned arrows will be flying, and one of these may—well—well, but we are all in the hands of the Lord, so let me not anticipate—let me not anticipate," he added, for this man could actually cant to himself!

  "My poor old father going to fight again!" exclaimed Gillian, on the letter being read to him. "Oh, Uncle Gainswood, but for his determined wish and my love for Dove, what a coward and slave I should feel myself just now."

  "Don't be melodramatic, Gillian," said Mr. Gainswood, eyeing the lad gloomily from under his bushy eyebrows, as he actually seemed to hate him for a tenderness and enthusiasm which his nature failed to comprehend; "when your good aunt left me for a better world—'blessed are the dead which die in the Lord'—she entrusted you to me, as especially your father did, Gillian; but, alas! we cannot gather figs of thistles. We know not what may happen; and, for all your good father's bright hopes, you may still, my boy, be utterly penniless."

The Bhotanese bullets were, perhaps, hovering in the lawyer's mind.

  Gillian had more than once heard this unpleasant, and to him inexplicable, inuendo from his uncle, but did not attach to it the weight that, after a time, he found himself compelled to do.

  "The dispositions of Providence are mysterious—yea, most mysterious, and no one knoweth what a day may bring forth!" said Mr. Gainswood, shaking his head solemnly, and using one of those phrases of which he had always a ready stock on hand, and which he used most when he was weaving a web of deceit, as he proceeded to fold, and docket and date the letter, by legal force of habit, "Colonel Lamond, anent his son's marriage," and then consigned it to the particular tin box the key of which he always kept himself.

  So the dear old Colonel had consented, and nothing was wanted but his return and his presence to crown the happiness of all, as Gillian thought, when, with Mr. Gainswood's permission, he hurried home to acquaint Dove with the contents of his father's letter, the effect of which was very different upon the recipient thereof, for when left alone, he sat long buried in thought, with his brows knit, his teeth clenched, and his hands thrust far into his trowser's pocket, where they played unconsciously—another habit he had—with the loose money he loved so well.