She’ll be a thousand times more beautiful at thirty-three than she was at twenty-two, and ever so much more lovely at fifty-five than at thirty-three.  So it’s a good bargain, isn’t it, em?” This to Emily, who appeared confused.  She trotted up to him, and laid her soft blooming cheek against his blooming hard one.  “Never mind, em,” she lisped, “everything is bound to come out right.  I’ve settled it all”—­this with a triumphant look on her baby-face—­“with the author; such a splendid writer, none of your twaddling women-scribblers, but a real man, and a great friend of mine.  I’m to marry you, em.  You don’t know it, because you once loved Naomi, who ‘mawrwried the Wrevewrend Solomon’”—­at this point most of the Purple Dragoons were rude enough to yawn openly.  She paid no attention to them—­“and now you love Olive, but she loves PARKACK, and he doesn’t love her, so she has got to marry PARKOSS, whom she doesn’t love.  Their initials are the same, and everybody knows their caligraphy is exactly alike,” she went on wearily, “so that’s how the mistake arose.  It’s a bit far-fetched, but,” and her arch smile as she said this would have melted a harder heart than Captain EMILY’s, “we mustn’t be too particular in a soldier’s tale, you know.”

As she concluded her remarks the door opened, and Colonel Purser entered the room.

CHAPTER III.

  “Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker’s man.”
      —­Old Ballad.

Colonel Purser was a stout, plethoric man.  He was five feet seven inches high, forty-five inches round the chest, fifty inches round the waist, and every inch of him was a soldier.  He was, therefore, a host in himself.  He gasped, and turned red, but, like a real soldier, at once grasped the situation.  The Colonel was powerful, and the situation, in spite of all my pains, was not a strong one.  The struggle was short.

“Pardon me,” said the Colonel, when he had recovered his wind, “is your name Mignon?”

“Yes,” she replied, as the tears brimmed over in her lovely eyes, “it is.  I am a simple soldier’s child, but, oh, I can run so beautifully—­through ever so many volumes, and lots of editions.  In fact,” she added, confidentially, “I don’t see why I should stop at all, do you?  Emily must marry me.  He can’t marry Olive, because Dame Nature put in her eyes with a dirty finger.  Ugh!  I’ve got blue eyes.”

“But,” retorted the Colonel, quickly, “shall you never quarrel?”

“Oh yes,” answered MIGNON, “there will come a rift in the hitherto perfect lute of our friendship (the rift’s name will be DARKEY), but we shall manage to bridge it over—­at least TOM RUM SUMMER says so.”  Here EMILY broke in.  He could stand it no longer.  “Dash it, you know, this is wewry extwraowrdinawry, wewry extwraowrdinawry indeed,” he observed; “You’wre a most wremawrkable young woman, you know.”