ried the colour-sergeant.
That's what I shall end by doing. I've been all the way to Sandgate with
that lot you saw me with, and I've kissed four of them--the nasty
wretches. I'm a nice sort of girl to be walking out with a
respectable milkman.'

"She was so deeply disgusted with herself that it seemed superfluous for
anybody else to be indignant with her; and Ethelbertha changed her tone
and tried to comfort her.

"'Oh, you'll get over all that nonsense, Amenda,' she said, laughingly;
'you see yourself how silly it is. You must tell Mr. Bowles to keep you
away from soldiers.'

"'Ah, I can't look at it in the same light way that you do, mum,'
returned Amenda, somewhat reprovingly; 'a girl that can't see a bit of
red marching down the street without wanting to rush out and follow it
ain't fit to be anybody's wife. Why I should be leaving the shop with
nobody in it about twice a week, and he'd have to go the round of all
the barracks in London, looking for me. I shall save up and get myself
into a lunatic asylum, that's what I shall do.'

"Ethelbertha began to grow quite troubled. 'But surely this is something
altogether new, Amenda,' she said; 'you must have often met soldiers
when you've been out in London?'

"'Oh, yes, one or two at a time, walking about anyhow, I can stand that
all right. It's when there's a lot of them all together with a band that
I lose my head.'

[Illustration: "'WHEN THERE'S A LOT OF THEM WITH A BAND, I LOSE MY
HEAD.'"]

"'You don't know what it's like, mum,' she added, noticing Ethelbertha's
puzzled expression; 'you've never had it. I only hope you never may.'

"We kept a careful watch over Amenda during the remainder of our stay at
Folkestone, and an anxious time we had of it. Every day some regiment or
other would march through the town, and at the first sound of its music
Amenda would become restless and excited. The Pied Piper's reed could
not have stirred the Hamelin children deeper than did those Sandgate
bands the heart of our domestic. Fortunately, they generally passed
early in the morning when we were indoors, but one day, returning home
to lunch, we heard distant strains dying away upon the Hythe Road. We
hurried in. Ethelbertha ran down into the kitchen; it was empty!--up
into Amenda's bedroom; it was vacant! We called. There was no answer.

"'That miserable girl has gone off again,' said Ethelbertha. 'What a
terrible misfortune it is for her. It's quite a disease.'

"Et