pretty full, as this is the season, but Fanny will find you a corner."
"Oh, don't you bother about me," protested his cousin, "I'm only going to stop in Madras for two or three days, just to see you, get the hang of the country, and benefit of your experience—I expect you can give me lots of tips, and I want to arrange about money and letters, before I go off on my travels!"
"But, my dear boy," said Colonel Tallboys, sitting down as he spoke, and pointing to a chair, "you don't mean to tell me, that you are really serious about this business? You are not in earnest, in starting on such a wild-goose chase?"
"But of course I am, and in deadly earnest; that is what brought me out here, in the middle of the hunting season."
The young fellow with his mother's eyes, and her impulsive and warm-hearted nature, had also inherited his father's square jaw, and cold thought) possibly been cursed with Edgar's stubborn will,—and curious strain of eccentricity!
For a few seconds Colonel Tallboys surveyed his visitor in grave speculative silence. At last he said:
"Well, look here, Geoffrey; you may as well spend two or three weeks with us, and see how the poor benighted Presidency enjoys itself? There are a couple of balls, a big gymkhana, and the polo tournament coming off. This is our cold weather."
"Is it?" and he laughed ironically. "Well, I'm glad you mentioned it!"
"Of course this is a particularly nasty day! Don't sample us by a beastly long-shore wind. By the by, you play polo—your regiment had a strong team. I used to see your name in matches. I'll find you ponies."
"It's most awfully good of you, Cousin Fred: polo and dances are all right—but you know what I'm out for, and they are not my job."
"No, but after a lapse of thirty years, a few weeks
