er was silent. "It wouldn't, if I were not going away."

"You are going away?" Max was conscious of a faint chill. He would have
found some comfort in the thought that his brave little travelling
companion was near, even though he seldom saw and never spoke to her.

"Not home to the aunts! I told you I'd never go back to live with them,
and my father wouldn't send me. But there's to be a long march---- Oh,
have I said what I oughtn't? Why? Since he _must_ know if he joins?
Anyhow, I can't stay here many days longer--I mean, for the present. I'm
to be sent to a wonderful place. It will be a great romance."

"Sanda, it is irrelevant to talk of that now," Colonel DeLisle reminded
his daughter.

"Forgive me! I forgot, father. May I--name the new soldier, and wish him
joy?"

DeLisle laughed rather bitterly. "'Joy' isn't precisely the word. If he
hoped for it, he would soon be disillusioned. You may give him a name,
if he wishes it. But let me also give him a few words of advice.
Monsieur Doran----"

"St. George!" broke in Sanda. "That is to be his name. I christen him,
close to the flag. Soldier, saint, slayer of dragons." She did not add
"my patron saint," but Max remembered, and was grateful.

"Soldier Saint George, then," DeLisle began again, smiling, "this is my
advice as your friend and well-wisher: again, I say, why should you not
take advantages you have fairly earned? My men are wonderful soldiers. I
suppose in the world there can be none braver, few so brave; for they
nearly all come to heal or hide some secret wound that makes them
desperate or careless of life. They are glorious soldiers, these
foreigners of ours! But at the beginning you will see them at their
worst in the dulness of barrack life. There are all sorts and
conditions, from the lowest to the highest. You may happen to be among
some of the lowest. Why not start where you are entitled to start? When,
in being recruited, you are asked to state your profession, you're at
liberty to say what you choose. No statement as to name, age, country,
or occupation is disputed in the Legion. But once more, let me advise
you, if you write yourself down "Soldier," things can be made
comparatively easy for you."

"I thank you, sir, and I will take your advice in everything else. But I
don't want things made easy."

"You may regret your obstinacy."

"Oh, father," pleaded Sanda, "wouldn't you be the very one to do the
same thing?"

"In his place," said Co