that he ought to call on Mrs. Jones, the doctor's wife, whose plump figure he could recognize even at this range. Evidently she was showing the sights of Aurangabad to one of the visitors who he had heard were staying with her. Mrs. Jones was always good company, and although he had rather lost taste for women's society now, it would be nice to talk over the old times again, before life had all gone wrong.

After breakfast he settled down to a really busy day, interviewing recruiting parties, inspecting recruits, checking accounts, etc. until late in the evening, when he managed to find a moment to slip round and call on the Joneses. They were out, however, and so feeling that he had done his duty in calling on the only married people he knew in the place, he returned to the Dak bungalow. He found some letters forwarded on to him from Poona, and among them he noticed an official letter from the A. G.'s office at the base in East Africa. They could all wait until after dinner anyway so he bathed and dressed and had dinner, and then betook himself on to the veranda to the comfort of a long chair.

He ran through the letters, but there was nothing of interest until he came to the African one which he opened carelessly, and found it contained another letter, which he pulled out, and then sat still looking at the envelope, for on the back was Nan Raynor's dainty violet monogram. He turned it over, and on the front saw, partly pasted over his address, a typewritten slip:

Letter found with some other papers in a German safe on the occupation of Tabora. They were described as having been taken from the body of an English officer killed at Kigomani.

The letter was nearly slit open at one end, but otherwise the contents appeared intact.

So poor old Smith in his muddly way had mislaid one of his letters that day, mixed up with all the odds and ends in his haversack. Her letter, too, . . . the one evidently written to tell him about her engagement to Allason.

He sat there staring out into the moonlight, the letter clenched in his hand, unread. What had this letter come back for now, to tear open the old wound again, when everything was over beyond hope of repair?

Still he almost felt grateful that he had not received it before, at least he had had a few more weeks of hope. Should he read this letter come back from the hand of its dead bearer? He knew what it would contain, of course -a final refusal, for it could be nothing else in view of her marriage only a few weeks later. Was it worth reading it now?

He stood up and looked out of the veranda. What glorious moonlight! Why shouldn't he go out to the Makbara tonight; he had never seen it by moonlight, and every one said how wonderful it was.

Now that the thing was over and the pain dulled somewhat, why not read her letter? It would be good to see her dear handwriting once more. After all, it didn't matter. He felt almost ashamed of giving into sentimental nonsense; but it would be nice to walk out to that dream garden and sit there a while in the cool friendly night and dream a little, and out there he could read her letter. Moonlight softens all it touches-perhaps it would soften down the harshness of the contents.

It was only half an hour's walk to the Makbara, and perhaps he mightn't get another chance of seeing it by moonlight before he left. This as an answer to the voice that kept on saying: "Don't be a sentimental ass; it's only a letter to say she was going to

marry Allason. Chuck it into the waste-paper basket."

He went into his room, filled his tobacco pouch, got his stick, and started off.

The Makbara gardens were certainly worth coming to by moonlight, he felt when he got there, and stood on the high stone plinth of the main building looking down on the gardens full of mysterious shadows, rendered even darker by the glint of the white stone terraces and the shimmer of moonlight on the water of the fountain basins. The white dome and minarets showed up against the misty background of the hills which lie behind the Makbara, making it look like some fairy palace. There was still that faint haziness in the air which is often characteristic of the early part of the Indian night, with the result that, while the moonlight showed up things close by with startling distinctness, objects a little farther off seemed vague and misty, giving an added ethereal touch to the scene.

At the back of the building are more rose walks, and going down he found a little stone seat, partly under the shadow of some thick trees at a corner of the building, where he sat down and lit his pipe.

He pulled out the letter and looked at the address again. Yes, the handwriting was like hers, wasn't it? Nobody but Nan wrote like thatclear, firm, decisive, and yet with funny little flourishes to some of the letters, and with a certain grace all of its own. Just like Nan that too— clear, decisive, and yet with fascinating quaint little turns of speech that were altogether her own, stamped with her own individuality. If only things had gone right, how different life would have been!

He was just going to take the letter out of the envelope, when he caught the sound of a motor driving up,

"Damn! picnics, I suppose." He put the letter back into his pocket and got up. Then it occurred to him that to go towards the gate would be inevitably to meet the party, whoever they were. He did not wish to meet anyone tonight, least of all a picnic party of chatty, gossipy, banal people.

One of those moonlight

Much better wait where he was until they had gone up into the building itself and then he could slip away quietly. There was not much likelihood of their coming straight down to the garden at the back where he was sitting, and even if they did they might not see him in this dark corner. So he put out his pipe and sat down again at the end of the bench which was in the full shadow, and waited for the party to go up to the tomb itself.

He heard voices and laughter of people coming closer, and then heard them going up the steps to the minaret in the far corner. Probably they were going to climb it for the view.

The voices died away shortly and he got up to go so as to escape before they came down into the garden. He walked round below the high plinth on which the building stands, keeping in the shadow until he reached the corner where the straight terrace leading to the gate starts. As he turned into the brilliant white Indian moonlight, he saw a girl sitting on one of the little carved stone seats on the terrace not three yards from him.

She was looking out over the fountain basins, slightly bent forward, her hands clapsed over her knees, her head a little raised. The moonlight shimmered on her gray silk dress and on the filmy veil which had slipped down, leaving her head and neck and one gleaming shoulder bare.

The face was fully revealed in the moonlight-a dainty, sensitive, highbred face, with a little firm round

chin and broad, rather low, forehead, and in the thick black hair which clustered back in waves over the delicate ears gleamed a single brilliant ornament like a star among a mass of dark storm clouds.

The eyes, heavy-lidded, were narrowed as though she was looking at something far off, and the slightly puckered forehead seemed to add to the impression,-almost as if she were trying to recall something distant, some fleeting memory, or seeking for something in a faraway landscape. In this unguarded moment the dominant note of the face seemed one of sadness.

Ward stopped dead, rigid, but his footsteps had evidently disturbed the girl, for she turned, saw him, and stared at him wide-eyed, and then with a little glad cry as if she had found what she sought

"Eldred!"

The man couldn't answer for a moment. He stood looking at her with hungry longing eyes, and then said slowly

"Yes. . . Nan."

He stopped again. How very, very good she was to look at. . . . Then again, since he felt he must say something, do something to keep his mind off impossibilities, for he felt all the old passion surging up in his veins, although he spoke coolly, steadily, in a tremendous endeavor to keep his self-control

"Fancy our running into one another like this. I didn't even know you were in India, much less in Aurangabad. You're stopping with Mrs. Jones, I suppose; I heard she had visitors. I'm just down here for a couple of days, going off again tomorrow morning."

Which was a good speedy lie, for he had made arrangements to stop for another week yet, all of which would have to be canceled now. How could he stop here and see her

every day, when he realized that none of the old feeling had gone, that it was there stronger than ever for all his many attempts at repression.

Dear Lord, how it hurt to look at her, knowing that she would never be his now-his own Nan whom he had loved so long, the one woman of his dreams and of his waking moments.

"Going away tomorrow? Oh, Eldred, we've only just met again, and you've not even said you're glad to see me. Surely you needn't run away at once, you can stop a day or two."

The voice held a mingling of pride and pleading. "You you always used to write about the ripping times we'd have when next we met... and now

"Nan, the simple truth is, it hurts a little too much still. I know I'm a fool, but just now I don't think that I could stand meeting you every day. I'm only a very ordinary man, and the strain would be too great. You see, I only got the news accidentally, because your letter miscarried, and it was all so sudden that I couldn't quite realize it . . . haven't done so thoroughly yet."

The girl looked at him with wondering eyes. "What news, Eldred, and which letter? Do you mean my last one that you never answered? That hurt me more than I thought anything ever could, heaps more than your silly one about my not knowing my own mind."

There was a little note of injured pride creeping into her voice now.

"Why, this one," and he pulled it out. "You see, the Huns got it before I did, and I only received it today and I haven't even read it yet . . ."

Nan stood up, her right hand gripping the back of the bench. The wondering look was still in her eyes, but there was something else as well now, a faint gleam of hope.

Ward stood still, seeming half stunned.

"Not married!-but I heard thatyou had married a fellow called Allason."

The look of wonderment on Nan's

face gave way to one of dawning understanding.

"Captain Allason married my cousin, Helen Raynor, whom you've not met. So you heard that, and thought it was me-" She stopped, breathing a little quickly. "And then I waitedand waited for an answer to my letter -and you never answered, and life was so lonely at home that I came out here to stop with Helen. I thoughtthat I'd written a silly letter-and -you didn't care any more."

a little she said bravely and simply"Just-just-that I wanted you, Eldred-dearest."

Before she had finished, the man's arms were round her as he gazed down into her face, scanning her half-closed frightened eyes which looked up to his, and her warm, parted, tremulous lips. Then with the soft sweetness of the Indian night running like a strange fiery wine in their veins, their lips met.

"Nan, Nan," called a woman's voice from the minaret above. "You must come up and see the view. It looks like a dream city in the moonlight. Harry will help you up if your ankle is too bad."

"Oh, dear," said Nan, releasing herself, "you've made my hair all untidy."

"All right, Helen, I'm coming up, but Harry needn't come down. got someone to help me up."

I've

Then as she stood up, arranging her hair, she said softly: "It is a city of dreams, isn't it, Heart's Delight-our city, the city where dreams come true." Ganpat.

If the measure of an artist is the accuracy with which the life of his times is reflected in his work, and the width of his range, then John Leech, the centenary of whose birth has just been celebrated (August 29, 1817), is the greatest artist that this country has produced. But since such a claim as that would submerge us in controversial waters let it rather be Isaid that Leech is the most representative artist that England has produced. The circumstances that he worked in black and white and was chiefly concerned with the humorous aspect of men and manners do not affect the position.

The outlines of Leech's life are very

simple. He was born in London on August 29, 1817, the son of John Leech, proprietor of the once very prosperous London Coffee House on Ludgate-hill, who was himself said to be something of a draughtsman and a Shakespeare enthusiast. The child took early to the pencil; and it is recorded that Flaxman, a friend of the family, found him at a tender age, on his mother's knee, drawing well enough to be encouraged. The great sculptor's advice was that the boy, whom he thought to be clearly destined for an artist, should be permitted to follow his own bent. Three years later Flaxman seems to have repeated this counsel. At seven, Leech was sent to

school at Charterhouse. then in its old London quarters; and the story is told that Mrs. Leech, who probably thought seven far too young, took a room which overlooked the playground in order secretly to watch her little son, thus displaying a sympathetic solicitude which that son inherited and carried through life. At Charterhouse Leech remained until he was sixteen, among his schoolfellows being Thackeray; but as Thackeray was six years his senior it is unlikely that they saw much of each other as boys, although they were always glad in after life, when they became very intimate colleagues on Punch, to recall their schooldays and extol their school.

On leaving, Leech went to Bart's to learn to be a surgeon, and there by curious and fortunate chance fell in with a congenial fellow student named Percival Leigh, whose interest in comic journalism was to play a very important part in Leech's career. Leigh had two friends who shared his literary tastes and ambitions-Albert Smith, a medical student at the Middlesex Hospital, and Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, а young barrister, these forming a humorous band of brothers to which Leech made a very welcome addition. Leigh was seriously concerned also with medicine, but there is no evidence that Leech burned any midnight oil in its pursuit, although he made some excellent anatomical drawings. The popularity of the London Coffee House on Ludgatehill meanwhile declining, a less expensive instructor than St. Bartholomew became necessary; and Leech was placed with the ingenious Mr. Whittle of Hoxton, who, under the guise of a healer, devoted most of his attention to pigeons and boxing. Mr. Whittle of Hoxton (who is to be found in Albert Smith's novel, "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury," which Leech illustrated, as Rawkins) may

not appreciably have extended his pupils knowledge of therapeutics, but he is our benefactor in quickening his interest in sport. Leech's next mentor was Dr. John Cockle, son of the Cockle of the pills; and then, the paternal purse being really empty, he, at the age of eighteen, flung physic to the dogs and trusted for a living to his pencil, which, since because Charterhouse had the most indifferent of drawing masters, was still untrained. In those days there were many ephemeral satirical sheets, in addition to the magazines, of which Bentley's Miscellany was one of the chief, to offer employment to the comic draughtsman, and Leech did not starve; his two experiences at this period of the inside of a sponging house being due to his good nature rather than to financial foolishness of

his own. His first publication was a slender collection of street types entitled "Etchings and Sketchings," by A Pen, 1835. He tried also political caricatures and drew bruisers for Bell's Life in London. In 1836 he was among those draughtsmen (Thackeray was another) who competed without success for Seymour's post as illustrator of a series of humorous papers describing the proceedings of the Pickwick Club. In 1837 he illustrated Theodore Hook's "Jack Brag." In 1840 appeared his parody of the Mulready envelope, which was very popular and a real foundation stone for the young artist, and Percival Leigh's "Comic Latin Grammar" and "Comic English Grammar," the illustrations to which fortified the impression which the Mulready skit had made and established the fact that a new pictorial humorist of resource and vigor had made his appearance.

In 1841 Punch was founded, with Mark Lemon as its editor and Leigh on its staff; and for Leech to join up was merely a matter of time. His