of sacks stuffed with hay, and
showing signs of mortal injury with their greasy entrails protruding.
Gone, too, were the hours when Willy sank into the lowest abyss of
depression over his failure to be a fighting man.

"But you are doing your best for your country," she would say.

"I'm not fighting for it, or getting smashed up for it. I don't want
to be a hero, but I'd like to have had one good bang at them before I
quit."

Once she had found him in the hut, with his head on a table. He said he
had a toothache.

Well, that was all over. She was back in her grandfather's house, and--

"He'll get me too, probably," she reflected, as she went down the
stairs, "just as he's got all the others."

Mademoiselle was in Lily's small sitting room, while Castle was
unpacking under her supervision. The sight of her uniforms made Lily
suddenly restless.

"How you could wear these things!" cried Mademoiselle. "You, who have
always dressed like a princess!"

"I liked them," said Lily, briefly. "Mademoiselle, what am I going to do
with myself, now?"

"Do?" Mademoiselle smiled. "Play, as you deserve, Cherie. Dance, and
meet nice young men. You are to make your debut this fall. Then a very
charming young man, and marriage."

"Oh!" said Lily, rather blankly. "I've got to come out, have I? I'd
forgotten people did such things. Please run along and do something
else, Castle. I'll unpack."

"That is very bad for discipline," Mademoiselle objected when the
maid had gone. "And it is not necessary for Mr. Anthony Cardew's
granddaughter."

"It's awfully necessary for her," Lily observed, cheerfully. "I've been
buttoning my own shoes for some time, and I haven't developed a spinal
curvature yet." She kissed Mademoiselle's perplexed face lightly. "Don't
get to worrying about me," she added. "I'll shake down in time, and be
just as useless as ever. But I wish you'd lend me your sewing basket."

"Why?" asked Mademoiselle, suspiciously.

"Because I am possessed with a mad desire to sew on some buttons."

A little later Lily looked up from her rather awkward but industrious
labors with a needle, and fixed her keen young eyes on Mademoiselle.

"Is there any news about Aunt Elinor?" she asked.

"She is with him," said Mademoiselle, shortly. "They are here now, in
the city. How he dared to come back!"

"Does mother see her?"

"No. Certainly not."

"Why 'certainly' not? He is Aunt Elinor's husband. She isn't doing
anything wic