This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. THE GHOST OF A PAST. "Have I done with those childish fancies 1 They suited the days gone by, When I pulled the poppies and pansies, When I hunted the butterfly, With one who has long been sleeping, A stranger to doubts and cares, And to sowing that ends in reaping Thistles and thorns and tares. "What might be! The dreams were scatter'd, As chaff is toss'd by the wind, The faith has been rudely shattered, That listen'd with credence blind; Things were to have been, and therefore They were, and they are to be, And will be: --we must prepare for The doom we are bound to dree." Lindsay Gordon. THE GHOST OF A PAST.! j 0 you're tired of India at last, Dundas!" said a tall soldierly looking man to his companion, as both stood talking together in a comparatively quiet corner of the gorgeous ball-room of X House. "I thought the day would come when your enthusiasm for those coral strands would find its own level!" "Not at all, my dear fellow. It hasn't been love for an Indian climate, but want of money enough to live in an English one, which has kept me out there of late years, I can tell you! Of course it was all very well at first, when there was lots of work to do, and the chance of something to be.got also for doing it; but it's a dreary country at best to my thinking, and I'm devoutly thankful for this appointment which has come in so opportunely to bring me home, even though I'm entering on the sere and yellow leaf now!" and General Dundas laughed THE GHOST OF A PAST. 167 as merrily as a boy in spite of his sage remark. "Old! who's old in these days?" asked the General's companion with an amused smile. "Not you, Dundas, I'll warrant, else you're uncommonly altered from what you were when we both joined the--th Light Dragoons together mo...