s, in all times and places we are in God's hand.'

'So we be, so we be!' said the miller, who still shone in all the
fierceness of uniform. 'Well, now we'll ha'e a drop o' drink.'

'There's none,' said David, coming forward with a drawn face.

'What!' said the miller.

'Afore I went to church for a pike to defend my native country from
Boney, I pulled out the spigots of all the barrels, maister; for, thinks
I--damn him!--since we can't drink it ourselves, he shan't have it, nor
none of his men.'

'But you shouldn't have done it till you was sure he'd come!' said the
miller, aghast.

'Chok' it all, I was sure!' said David. 'I'd sooner see churches fall
than good drink wasted; but how was I to know better?'

'Well, well; what with one thing and another this day will cost me a
pretty penny!' said Loveday, bustling off to the cellar, which he found
to be several inches deep in stagnant liquor. 'John, how can I welcome
'ee?' he continued hopelessly, on his return to the room. 'Only go and
see what he's done!'

'I've ladled up a drap wi' a spoon, trumpet-major,' said David. ''Tisn't
bad drinking, though it do taste a little of the floor, that's true.'

John said that he did not require anything at all; and then they all sat
down to supper, and were very temperately gay with a drop of mild elder-
wine which Mrs. Loveday found in the bottom of a jar. The trumpet-major,
adhering to the part he meant to play, gave humorous accounts of his
adventures since he had last sat there. He told them that the season was
to be a very lively one--that the royal family was coming, as usual, and
many other interesting things; so that when he left them to return to
barracks few would have supposed the British army to contain a lighter-
hearted man.

Anne was the only one who doubted the reality of this behaviour. When
she had gone up to her bedroom she stood for some time looking at the
wick of the candle as if it were a painful object, the expression of her
face being shaped by the conviction that John's afternoon words when he
helped her out of the way of Champion were not in accordance with his
words to-night, and that the dimly-realized kiss during her faintness was
no imaginary one. But in the blissful circumstances of having Bob at
hand again she took optimist views, and persuaded herself that John would
soon begin to see her in the light of a sister.

XXIX. A DISSEMBLER

To cursory view, John Loveday seeme