at all a bad
thing for them--teaches them that a soldier's life is not all jam.'

'No,' said Hazel, 'the General seems to get most of that.'

All Clarence said was: 'I'll trouble one of you girls for the tea-cake.'

'I don't think it's fair that the poor army should "rough," as you call
it, while you stuff, Clarence,' said Hazel, indignantly. 'Mustn't they
come in to tea, mother? It is such nonsense!'

'Yes, dear, run and call them in,' said Mrs. Jolliffe. 'I can't let my
boys go without their meals, Clarence, it's so bad for them.'

'It's not discipline,' said the chief; 'still, if they must come, you
had better take them this permit from me.' And he scribbled a line on a
scrap of paper, which he handed to Hazel, who received it with the
utmost disdain.

Hazel crossed the lawn and over a little rustic bridge to the kitchen
garden and hothouses, beyond which was the paddock, where the fortress
had been erected. It was a very imposing construction, built, with some
help from the village carpenter, of portions of some disused fencing.
The stockade had loopholes in it, and above the top she could see a
fluttering flag and the point of a tent. Jack was perched up on a kind
of look-out, and Guy was pacing solemnly before the covered entrance
with a musket of very mild aspect over his shoulder.

'Who goes there?' he called out, some time after recognising her.

Hazel vouchsafed no direct reply to this challenge. 'You're to come in
to tea _directly_,' she announced in her most peremptory tone.

'Advance, and give the countersign,' said the sentinel.

'Don't be a donkey!' returned Hazel, tossing back her long brown hair
impatiently.

Guy levelled his firearm. It is exasperating when a sister can't enter
into the spirit of the thing better than that. Who ever heard of a
sentry being told, on challenging, 'not to be a donkey'? 'My orders are
to fire on all suspicious persons,' he informed her.

Hazel stopped both her ears. 'No, Guy, please--it makes me jump so.'

'There's no cap on,' said he.

'Then there's a ramrod, or a pea, or something horrid,' she objected;
'do turn it the other way.'

'Hazel's all right, Guy,' said Jack, in rebuke of this excessive zeal;
'we can let her pass.'

'As if I wanted to pass!' exclaimed Hazel. 'I only came to bring you
back to tea; and if you're afraid to go without leave, there's a
permission from Clarence for you.'

'Oh! come in and have a look now you're here,' said the gar