With a beaming smile--for to him the English mail meant one if not two
letters from Madeline, and possibly the glad news of sailing orders--he
pushed on to his quarters, tubbed and dressed, and then went down to the
mess-house for breakfast, expecting to find the letters delivered. But
the mail was a heavy one, and he had ample time to eat his breakfast,
also to sit and smoke a pipe upon the pleasant verandah under the shade
of the bamboos and camellia bushes before the orderly arrived with the
bag. Bottles went at once into the room that opened on to the veranda
and stood by calmly, not being given to betraying his emotions, while
slowly and clumsily the mess sergeant sorted the letters. At last he
got his packet--it only consisted of some newspapers and a single
letter--and went away back to his seat on the veranda, feeling rather
disappointed, for he had expected to hear from his only brother as well
as from his lady-love. Having relit his pipe--for he was of a slow
and deliberate mind, and it rather enhances a pleasure to defer it a
little--and settled himself in the big chair opposite the camellia bush
just now covered with sealing-wax-like blooms, he opened his letter and
read:--
"My dear George----"
"Good heavens!" he thought to himself, "what can be the matter? She
always calls me 'Darling Bottles!'"
"My dear George," he began again, "I hardly know how to begin this
letter--I can scarcely see the paper for crying, and when I think of you
reading it out in that horrid country it makes me cry more than ever.
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