“Bob will think you made these plum sweetmeats, Beulah,” said Maud, with a saucy smile, as she placed a glass plate on the table—­“He never thinks I can make anything of this sort; and, as he is so fond of plums, he will be certain to taste them; then you will come in for the praise!”

“You appear to think, that praise he must.  Perhaps he may not fancy them good.”

“If I thought so, I would take them away this instant,” cried Maud, standing in the attitude of one in doubt.  “Bob does not think much of such things in girls, for he says ladies need not be cooks; and yet when one does make a thing of this sort, one would certainly like to have it well made.”

“Set your heart at ease, Maud; the plums are delicious—­much the best we ever had, and we are rather famous for them, you know.  I’ll answer for it, Bob will pronounce them the best he has ever tasted.”

“And if he shouldn’t, why should I care—­that is, not very much—­about it.  You know they are the first I ever made, and one may be permitted to fail on a first effort.  Besides, a man may go to England, and see fine sights, and live in great houses, and all that, and not understand when he has good plum sweetmeats before him, and when bad.  I dare say there are many colonels in the army, who are ignorant on this point.”

Beulah laughed, and admitted the truth of the remark; though, in her secret mind, she had almost persuaded herself that Bob knew everything.

“Do you not think our brother improved in appearance, Maud,” she asked, after a short pause.  “The visit to England has done him that service, at least.”

“I don’t see it, Beulah—­I see no change.  To me, Bob is just the same to-day, that he has ever been; that is, ever since he grew to be a man—­with boys, of course, it is different.  Ever since he was made a captain, I mean.”

As major Willoughby had reached that rank the day he was one-and-twenty, the reader can understand the precise date when Maud began to take her present views of his appearance and character.

“I am surprised to hear you say so, Maud!  Papa says he is better ’set up,’ as he calls it, by his English drill, and that he looks altogether more like a soldier than he did.”

“Bob has always had a martial look!” cried Maud, quickly—­“He got that in garrison, when a boy.”

“If so, I hope he may never lose it!” said the subject of the remark, himself, who had entered the room unperceived, and overheard this speech.  “Being a soldier, one would wish to look like what he is, my little critic.”

The kiss that followed, and that given to Beulah, were no more than the usual morning salutations of a brother to his sisters, slight touches of rosy cheeks; and yet Maud blushed; for, as she said to herself, she had been taken by surprise.

“They say listeners never hear good of themselves,” answered Maud, with a vivacity that betokened confusion.  “Had you come a minute sooner, master Bob, it might have been an advantage.”