of all the relatives we've got to face when we get back.
There'll be Aunt Hortense and Uncle Charles. Mater'll have all the
uncles and the cousins and the aunts in to bid me a tender farewell.
Think of spending my last evening with you answering questions about how
deep the mud is in the trenches, and what we get to eat, and what the
names of all the officers in my mess are."

"And then they'll spend the rest of our precious time connecting them up
to people of the same name in England," said Marjorie.

"Exactly," agreed Leonard. "Aren't grown-up relations beastly?"

"Horrible," said Marjorie, "but they've been awfully decent about
letting me have you all of these four days."

To put off the evil moment of arrival they stopped at every shop-window
and stared in, their faces pressed close to the glass.

All the way home, with eyes that neither saw nor cared where they were
going, they talked to each other of their childhood. The most trivial
incidents became magnified and significant when exchanged.

"That's just the way I used to feel, that's just the way I used to
feel," they kept repeating, over and over again. The sweet, misty
memories of their happy, happy lives, came gliding back into
consciousness. The thoughts and yearnings, the smells, the sights and
sounds, all the serenity of the immaculate, long childhood days. Walking
side by side in the reverent dimness, intensely conscious of each other,
they had that mysterious sensation of having done this before, of living
a second time. The world was transfigured; they were aware of
measureless rapture brooding close about them in the twilight of which
they were a part--a rapture, a sense of enchantment, that people are
only conscious of as children or when they are in love or in dreams.

Finally, deliciously weary, and full of the languor of the summer night,
they retraced their steps and took the two-penny tube.

They arrived home late. The family were at dinner.

"We've missed two courses," said Leonard gleefully; "the aunts must be
raging."

"Shall I dress up?" said Marjorie.

"Good God!" answered Leonard, "I go to-morrow at five. Don't wear
anything that will make them think we're going to sit round and converse
with Aunt Hortense all the evening. I'm going up to say good-bye to the
boy."

Marjorie found him there, stretched out on Herbert's little cot,
completely covering the little mound under the pink coverlet.

"Don't you come near, Marjorie; I'