cember morning we awoke to the glad consciousness that that very
evening the Boy would be with us again. Across the breakfast-table we
kept saying to each other, "It seems scarcely possible that the Boy is
really coming home to-night," but all the while we hugged the assurance
that it was.

The Boy is an ordinary snub-nosed, shock-headed urchin of thirteen, with
no special claim to distinction save the negative one of being an only
child. Yet without his cheerful presence our home seemed empty and dull.
Any attempts at merry-making failed to restore its life. Now all was
agog for his return. The house was in its most festive trim. Christmas
presents were hidden securely away. There was rejoicing downstairs as
well as up: the larder shelves were stored with seasonable fare, and
every bit of copper and brass sparkled a welcome. Even the kitchen cat
sported a ribbon, and had a specially energetic purr ready.

Into the midst of our happy preparations the bad news fell with
bomb-like suddenness. The messenger who brought the telegram whistled
shrilly and shuffled a breakdown on the doorstep while he waited to hear
if there was an answer.

"He is ill. He can't come. Scarlet fever," one of us said in an odd,
flat voice.

"Scarlet fever. At school. Oh! when can we go to him? When is there a
boat?" cried the other.

There was no question of expediency. The Boy lay sick in a foreign land,
so we went to him. It was full noon when the news came, and nightfall
saw us dashing through the murk of a wild mid-December night towards
Dover pier, feeling that only the express speed of the mail train was
quick enough for us to breathe in.

But even the most apprehensive of journeys may hold its humours. Just at
the moment of starting anxious friends assisted a young lady into our
carriage. "She was going to Marseilles. Would we kindly see that she got
on all right?" We were only going as far as Paris direct. "Well, then,
as far as Paris. It would be a great favour." So from Charing Cross to
the Gare du Nord, Placidia, as we christened her, became our care.

She was a large, handsome girl of about three-and-twenty. What was her
reason for journeying unattended to Cairo we know not. Whether she ever
reached her destination we are still in doubt, for a more complacently
incapable damsel never went a-voyaging. The Saracen maiden who followed
her English lover from the Holy Land by crying "London" and "A Becket"
was scarce so impotent as