nd Australian, and
officers in every variety of Allied uniform.

An officer came in with a lady and two tiny boys--Cecilia recognized
them as having been passengers on their train. With them came an old
Irish priest, who had met them, and the officer left them in his
care while he also went off on the luggage quest. The small boys were
apparently untired by their journey; they immediately began to use the
swinging glass doors as playthings to the imminent risk of their own
necks, since they were too little to be noticed by anyone coming in
or out, and were nearly knocked flat a dozen times by the swing of the
doors. The weary mother spent a busy time in rescuing them, and was not
always entirely successful--bumps and howls testified to the doors being
occasionally quicker than the boys. Finally, the old priest gathered
up the elder, a curly-haired, slender mite, into his arms and told him
stories, while his plump and solemn brother curled up on his mother's
knee and dozed. It was clearly long after their bed-time.

The procession of people came and went unceasingly, the glass doors
always aswing. In and out, in and out, men and women hurried, and just
beyond the kaleidoscope of the platforms moved and changed restlessly
under the glaring arc lights. Cecilia's bewildered mind grew weary of it
all, and she closed her eyes. It was some time later that she woke with
a start, to find Bob beside her.

"Sleepy old thing," he said. "Oh, I've had such a wild time, Tommy; to
get information of any kind is as hard as to get one's luggage. However,
I've got both. And the first thing is we can't go on board to-night."

"Bob! What shall we do?"

"I was rather anxious about that same thing myself," said Bob, "since
everyone tells me that Liverpool is more jammed with people than even
London--which is saying something. However, we've had luck. I went to
ask in here, never imagining I had the ghost of a chance, and they'd
just had telegrams giving up two rooms. So we're quite all right; and so
is the luggage. I've had all the heavy stuff handed over to a carrier to
be put on the Nauru to-morrow morning."

"You're the great manager," said Cecilia comfortably. "Where is the
Nauru, by the way?"

"Sitting out in the river, the transport officer says. She doesn't come
alongside until the morning; and we haven't to be on board until three
o'clock. She's supposed to pull out about six. So we really needn't have
left London to-day--but