h a restless and impatient delight. At the same time he was more
tolerant of his father than Pamela was, though he could not have
told why.

'Desmond, give me your foot,' Pamela presently commanded.

The boy bared his foot obediently, and held it out while Pamela
tried on a sock she had just finished knitting on a new pattern.

'I'm not very good at it,' sighed Pamela. 'Are you sure you can wear
them, Dezzy?'

'Wear them? Ripping!' said the boy, surveying his foot at different
angles. 'But you know, Pam, I can't take half the things you want me
to take. What on earth did you get me a Gieve waistcoat for?'

'How do you know you won't be going to Mesopotamia?'

'Well, I don't know; but I don't somehow think it's very likely.
They get their drafts from Egypt, and there's lots of artillery
there.'

Pamela remembered with annoyance that Miss Bremerton had gently
hinted the same thing when the Gieve waistcoat had been unpacked in
her presence. It was true, of course, that she had a brother
fighting under General Maude. That, no doubt, did give her a modest
right to speak.

'How old do you think she is?' said Desmond, nodding in the
direction of the library.

'Well, she's over thirty.'

'She doesn't look it.'

'Oh, Desmond, she does!'

'Let's call her the New Broom--Broomie for short,' said Desmond.
'Look here, Pam, I wish you'd try and like her. I shall have a
dreadful hump when I get to camp if I think she's going to make you
miserable.'

'Oh, I'll try,' said the girl with dreary resignation. 'You know I'm
not to see Beryl again?' She looked up.

Her brother laughed.

'Don't I see you keeping to that! If Aubrey's any good he'll marry
her straight away. And then how can father boycott her after that?'

'He will,' said Pamela decisively.

'And if father thinks I'm going to give up Arthur, he's jolly well
mistaken,' said the boy with energy. 'Arthur's the best fellow I
know, and he's been just ripping to me.'

The young face softened and glowed as though under the stress of
some guarded memory. Pamela, looking up, caught her brother's
expression and glowed too.

'Beryl says he isn't a bit strong yet. But he's moving heaven and
earth to get back to the front.'

'Well, if they don't give him enough to do he'll be pretty sick.
He's no good at loafing.'

There was silence a little. Outside a misty sunshine lay on the
garden and the park and in it the changing trees were beginning to
assume the individ