in the
sentence was not completed. She freed her hand and stepped within
the close.

'Tell me, an' I'll dae it, Christina,' he cried.

She shook her head, smiling rather ruefully.

'Tell me,' he pleaded.

'I canna--an' maybe ye wouldna like me ony better if I could.' She
took off the ring and with a wistful glance at it offered it to him.

He took it, and before she knew, it was on her finger again.

'Ye've jist got to keep it!' he said, desperately. 'An' Christina,
I--I'm gaun to kiss ye!'

'Oh, mercy!'

But he had none. . . .

'Are we engaged or no?' he whispered at last.

'Let me get ma breath.'

'Hurry up!'

She laughed, though her eyes were wet. 'Oh, dear,' she murmured,
'I never thought I wud get engaged wi'oot a--a . . .'

'A what?'

Suddenly she leaned forward and touched his cheek. 'Dinna fash
yersel', Mac. Bein' in war-time, I suppose the best o' us has got
to dae wi'oot some luxury or ither--sich as a proper High-Class
Proposal.'

V

IN UNIFORM

There happened to be a little delay in providing the later batches
of recruits with the garb proper to their battalion, and it was the
Monday of their third week in training when Privates
Robinson--otherwise Macgregor--and Thomson saw themselves for the
first time in the glory of the kilt. Their dismay would doubtless
have been overwhelming had they been alone in that glory; even with
numerous comrades in similar distress they displayed much
awkwardness and self-consciousness. During drill Willie received
several cautions against standing in a semi-sitting attitude, and
Macgregor, in his anxiety to avoid his friend's error, made himself
ridiculous by standing on his toes, with outstretched neck and
fixed, unhappy stare.

As if to intensify the situation, the leave for which they had
applied a few days previously was unexpectedly granted for that
evening. Before he realized what he was saying, Macgregor had
inquired whether he might go without his kilt. Perhaps he was not
the first recruit to put it that way. Anyway, the reply was a curt
'I don't think.'

'I believe ye're ashamed o' the uniform,' said Willie, disagreeable
under his own disappointment at the verdict.

'Say it again!' snapped Macgregor.

Willie ignored the invitation, and swore by the great god Jings
that he would assuredly wear breeks unless something happened. The
only thing that may be said to have happened was that he did not
wear breeks.

As a mat