r, one close, passionate, voiceless hug, she
released him, stepped back a pace, looked him in the face, and then
said eagerly, "Come away quickly, father; there is a meadow at the back
of the cherry orchard which we can have quite to ourselves. Come at
once. Did Mrs. Clavering send you out here? How good of her to let me
see you alone!"

"She does not even know that I have come, Kitty," replied her father.
"I met a girl--I don't know what her name is--just as I reached the
porch, and she took me to you. I cannot stay very long, my love, as I
must get back to Chatham to-night."

"All right," said Kitty; "let us make for the meadow; there is a big
oak-tree and we can sit under it and no one need see us. We must be
alone all, all during the time that you are here."

The Major said nothing. Kitty linked her hand through his arm. She
was feeling wildly excited--her father and she were together. It might
be an hour, or it might be two hours, that they were to spend together,
but the time was only beginning now. They were together, and she felt
all the warm glow of love, all the ecstasy of perfect happiness in
their reunion.

They reached the oak-tree in the meadow, the Major sat down, and Kitty
threw herself by his side.

"Well, Kitty," he said, "what is this that I hear? I read your letter;
it is quite a wonderful letter, little girl. It was the sort of letter
a brave girl would write."

"The sort of letter a girl would write whose father was a hero before
Sebastopol," said Kitty.

"What has put that in you head, my darling?"

"Sir John Wallis spoke of it. Oh, father dear, won't you go and see
Sir John Wallis--he is so nice and so kind? You were both heroes
before Sebastopol, were you not, father dearest, you and he?"

"We were in the trenches and we suffered a good bit," said the Major, a
grim smile on his face, "but those are bygone times, Kitty."

"All the same they are times that can never be forgotten while English
history lasts," said Kitty with a proud sparkle in her eyes.

"Well, no, little girl, I don't suppose England will ever forget the
men who fought for her," replied the Major; "but we won't waste time
talking on these matters now, my child; we have much else to say."

"What, father?"

"Well, your letter for instance; and you greatly dislike going to stay
with Helen Dartmoor?"

Kitty's face turned pale; she had been rosy up to now. The roses faded
out of her cheeks, then her lips