Reader dear, do you know what it is to feel that somebody is looking at you, though you may not be able to see him, to be aware for a fact that somebody is looking at you? I am extremely susceptible to this influence. Whilst sitting thus idly looking at the most distant thing my eyes could find to rest upon, I began to feel that someone was near, and looking intently at me. At first I resisted the temptation to look around to see who it was. I felt so irritable, that I resented, as an insult, the looking at me which I felt certain was going on; but at last this strange sensation added to my unrest and I half turned my head to see whether it was reality or feverish fancy.

My surprise was unbounded when I saw the same lovely face which I had caught a glimpse of that morning peering at me from behind the slightly opened chick of the room next to mine. I was so startled that instead of taking a good look at the lady I instantly gazed on the hills again, as if turning my head to look in her direction had been a breach of good manners on my part; but I felt she was still keeping her eyes fixed on me, and it amazed me that anyone in the position which I imagined she held (for I was firmly convinced that I was right as to my surmise that my unknown beauty was a lady, and a colonel's daughter) should be guilty of such bad manners as to stare at a perfect stranger in this manner. I turned my head once more, and this time I looked at this lovely but strange girl a little more fixedly. Her eyes, large, lustrous, most beautiful, seemed to pierce mine, as though trying to read my thoughts. For a moment I fancied she must be a little off her head, but just then, apparently satisfied with her reconnaissance, the fair creature disappeared from sight. From that moment my curiosity was greatly aroused. Who was she? Was she alone? Or was she with the unknown colonel in that room? Why was she staring at me so hard? By Jove! There she was at it again! I could stand it no longer. I jumped up and went into my own room and called the khansama.