MY LOVE, SHE'S BUT A LASSIE. CHAPTER I. My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life and gladness R. BROWNING. ONE August afternoon, precisely at the time when the 4.15 train was bound to leave the busy, over-crowded Middleland Junction, Walter Huntley, Captain in one of Her Majesty's cavalry regiments, quietly stepped into an empty carriage. Having already seen a portmanteau and tin case -both of which bore marks of many a journey in dints, weather-stains, and labels with strange foreign names-put into the van, he established himself in the shadiest corner, on that hot afternoon; prepared to enjoy all the comic papers, and one of the most amusing pamphlets of a living American humourist. The time was up! so the train being "rather" a punctual one, might not probably start for five or six minutes yet; but no one had ever known Wat Huntley to be either fussily early or languidly late, being, as he was, a happy example of pleasant, easy punctuality. He had some other good qualities too-strong and lasting ones,—but as these were not of the kind which show on the surface, or mark out their owner among the world-crowd of men, passers-by were likely enough to appraise him mentally at one glance |