"Milson! Why, that is a young fellow who
commands the Second Irregulars; he has not
fifteen hundred rupees a month, and owes at
least fifty thousand."

Miss Stevens replied that she was not au fait
with the major's monetary affairs, but that she
had accepted him for her future lord and master,
and on this the conversation ended, not,
however, without the old lover—who at heart was
really a good fellow—offering her his congratulations,
and saying he felt sure she would be
happy with her future husband.

Not so, however, Annie's father, the Deputy-
Commissary-General. It is true that nothing
could be urged against Major Milson's character;
but there was no concealing the fact of his
being very much in debt. His pay and allowances
amounted to about fifteen hundred rupees,
or one hundred and fifty pounds per month,
which makes about eighteen hundred per annum
English money. Now, as Indian officers are
obliged by deductions made from their pay, and
by grants from government for the same
purpose, to make ample allowance for their widows
and family, this income would have been quite
enough to marry upon, if Major Milson had
only been free from debt, which he certainly
was not. And, in India, being in debt invariably
means that the debtor is under deductions
to pay off his debt, either to one of the banks,
or to some agent or merchant who may be
his sole creditor. Milson made no secret of his
difficulties; in fact, in India there are no secrets
about anything, for every one knows his neighbour's
affairs quite as well as he does himself—
we all inhabit glass houses in that country.
To these debts, reducing as they did the major's
income to something like four hundred rupees a
month, the Deputy-Commissary-General made
a very serious objection; they formed an
insurmountable obstacle between the major and
his daughter. However, when a young lady
has made up her mind to a thing, there is
very little use thwarting her, for in the end
she is certain to have her own way. Annie
Stevens heard all that had to be said against her
lover, and determined to accept him with all
his monetary imperfections upon his head. She
said she was determined to marry him, and then
to get him out of debt, and she accomplished
both designs. Of the wedding and the grand
doings which it caused in Calcutta we need not
write, for is it not inscribed in the proper
columns of The Englishman and of the Bengal
Hurkuru of the day? After their marriage,
Major and Mrs. Milson went "up country;"
and, owing to the influence of the latter upon
her husband, and also to a promise which he
had made her before they married, he sold off
his race-horses, dismissed his English jockey,
parted with his "shikaree" elephant,* put all his
rifles, guns, racing saddles, four-in-hand harness,
and such-like unnecessary luxuries up to auction,
retaining merely one charger for himself, and a
bullock yharrie, or spring covered cart drawn
by bullocks, in which his wife could go about to
pay visits, or travel when they were marching,
or go to church. He wanted very much to
purchase a carriage and pair for her use, but
she would not allow him to do so, saying that
their first duty was to get clear of debt, and
their second to lay up money against a rainy
day, when sickness or other causes might oblige
him to go home on leave.
* A "shikaree elephant" is an elephant trained
and accustomed to being used in tiger-shooting,
deer-shooting, and in other sports where the sportsman
fires off his back at the game.

And she carried her point. Until he married,
Milson had always found that as fast as he paid
off with one hand he borrowed with the other.
Of his fifteen hundred rupees a month he paid
off regularly eleven hundred to his creditors,
and yet his debts seemed never to decrease.
But his wife proved herself a capital woman of
business. She took his affairs in hand, reduced
their household expenses to something less than
half what they were when Milson was a single
man, commencing her reign by turning off old
Hassein Allie, the faithful Kitmagar, or butler,
who had robbed his master for the last fifteen
years with a perseverance worthy of a better
cause. So well did Annie succeed in her
financial operations, that in two years after their
marriage a sensible diminution was made in the
amount Milson owed, in four years he was
nearly clear, in five he was a free man, and in six
they had commenced that nest-egg which
afterwards increased so largely. In the mean time
Milson had been promoted from brevet to
"pucka"* major, from that to lieutenant-
colonel, and had been offered, and had accepted,
an appointment in the Political Department,
which gave him three thousand rupees a month,
or about three thousand six hundred pounds
sterling per annum. His expenses were, as a matter
of course, somewhat increased, but still Annie
kept a very tight hand on the purse-strings.
They had no family, and thus were saved a
hundred necessary outlays which are imperative
upon those who are obliged to live in India, and
have to send their children home to be educated.
Milson never came home for his furlough, for
he looked forward to making up what would
enable him to spend a certain income in England,
and only wanted to return to Europe when he
gave up the service altogether. In due time
he obtained the rank of major-general, and with
it an appointment which obliged him to reside
at the Presidency, being nothing else but that of
Commissary-General, out of which Annie's old
admirer, Colonel Fathix—long ago gathered to
his fathers, and buried in the churchyard of his
native parish in Hertfordshire—had made so
much money. In this position Major-General
Milson began to roll up money in earnest—
somehow or other Commissariat officers in India
always do. Annie—no longer a very young
woman, for they had been married by this
time more than twenty years—still looked after
the purse, which now contained something very
comfortable in bank shares, East Indian railway
scrip, and other substantial securities, besides