'Certainly,' Hugh replied. And in that case, I may perhaps have the pleasure of seeing you to your destination.'

Mademoiselle threw prudence and that good grandpapa to the winds. 'You are very complaisant, monsieur,' she answered. 'I shall be grateful for your protection.' The fact is, she was beginning to believe that whatever might be the case with the English generally, Hugh Portledown at least was no such very terrible dragon.

They got into a carriage together, all the rest of the places being filled by rough working people, and talked away quite volubly to one another all the way to Highbridge Junction. Hugh was amused to see that the other occupants of the carriage took them both for some kind of foreigners who didn't understand English, and commented upon them freely enough for some time without the faintest suspicion that either of the pair could understand them. Newly married, I take it, 'Enery,' one man said,

nudging his fellow roughly.

Not even married yet,' 'Enery answered, with a vulgar leer; "'e's a precious sight too perlite to 'er, an' she's a deal too much in the bloomin' modesty line for a married woman.'

Hugh turned round to the fellow severely. 'It would be more becoming in you,' he said in a stern voice, speaking for the first time in English, not to criticise ladies who are travelling in the same carriage with you, at least in their presence.'

6

The man shrank back astonished, and held his peace without even a word of apology. Mlle. Eulalie didn't know, of course, exactly what had happened; but she could see that the stranger had been saying something or other rude about her, and that Hugh had given the man something he didn't like in return; and she felt duly grateful for it. Really, after all, these English are not all of them such abandoned ruffians as that dear grandpapa had led her to suppose.

Hour after hour wore slowly away, and at last the train reached Highbridge Junction. As yet, Hugh had had no breakfast, and he strongly suspected that Mlle. Eulalie had had none either. At Highbridge there might be time to get six-pennyworth of buns or biscuits, and, though three currant buns per person is not exactly a magnificent repast, it is at any rate better than nothing. So Hugh decided that as soon as he got there he would invest his one remaining sixpence in those cheap and filling edibles, and delicately offer half of them to Mlle. Eulalie.

But as the train drew up at Highbridge Junction, Hugh Portledown beheld before him a truly dismal sight. The 12.14 for Bristol, which they had expected to catch, was moving out of the

station even as they entered it. Hugh jumped out (with gross disregard of the company's by-laws) before the train had come to rest, in the vain endeavour to get the guard of the 12.14 to pull it up: but no, that cruel guard took no notice, and the Great Western engine puffed and snorted away heedless of his shouts till it disappeared in the dim distance across the wide level.

'Here's a pretty kettle of fish,' Hugh exclaimed idiomatically. 'Porter, when's the next train for Bristol?'

'At 4.10, sir,' answered the porter.

Hugh ran back with the dismal news to his pretty companion. "I regret to say, mademoiselle,' he said, 'that the train on the other line has gone off without us, and that we have to wait at this place for four hours.'

Mlle. Eulalie blushed and stammered, 'In that case, monsieur,' she said hesitatingly, 'you know the misfortune I had with my purse. I have not yet breakfasted. Would you mind being so kind as to lend me some few francs to procure a light déjeûner?'

Hugh was beside himself with embarrassment. • With pleasure, mademoiselle,' he answered, smiling as best he might; but will you excuse me for a few seconds ?-Here, porter, I say, is there such a thing as a pawnbroker's in this confounded place?' And he took out his watch and looked at it abstractedly, as though he were merely consulting the time for astronomical purposes. After all,' he thought, 'I could raise a couple of pounds on it, and ask the pawnbroker to send on the thing to Bristol on receipt of a letter. Better anything than that that poor little girl should go getting faint for want of a breakfast.'

'No, mister,' the porter answered offensively, in a very altered tone (he suspected Hugh, from his question about a pawnbroker, of the heinous crime of being poor): 'there ain't nothin' at all 'ere, not to speak of, excep' a station an' a public'ouse.'

Hugh went back miserably to his pretty French girl. There was nothing left but to make a clean breast of it. 'Mademoiselle,' he said, 'the fact is this. I have been abroad on a tour in your beautiful country for a week or two, and just at the end I have run short of money. I have nothing left except exactly twelve sous. Let us be candid with one another. I have had no breakfast, and you have had none. We will buy two rolls with those twelve sous, It will serve for a breakfast, and we must

and a glass of milk. share it.'

Mademoiselle laughed and Hugh laughed. There was nothing else to be done for it. They went into the refreshment-room and ate their humble breakfast, each of them drinking out of the glass by turns (mademoiselle first, of course, and Hugh was now far enough

gone to feel a little thrill of rapture when his lips pressed where hers had been). After they had finished, they walked up and down outside, much observed of the three young women in the refreshmentroom, and went on talking volubly to one another. It's positively astonishing how intimate two young people can get in two days spent thus together. Mademoiselle had quite lost her dread of the terrible Englishman by this time, and even ventured to laugh at him a little because, though his accent was generally good, his R's were of the usual weak-kneed insular description. R-r-roll them, monsieur,' she said, laughing. R-r-roll them, as I do.'

'So you are beginning to give lessons to the natives already!' Hugh said, smiling in return.

Just at that minute the 1.20 down train arrived at the station, and who should Hugh see at the window of a first-class carriage but his friend Colonel Montague, on his way down to Plymouth. 'Mademoiselle,' he cried, 'I see a friend! Nous voilà sauvés.'

6

He rushed up to the window excitedly, and called out, Hullo, Montague, this is luck. Just home from the Continent, and stuck here without any tin to get a dinner. Can you lend me a couple of sovereigns?'

The colonel pulled out his purse, and took two pounds from it. 'Send them back to me at the club at Plymouth,' he said. Hugh thanked him and pocketed the sovereigns, with the feelings of a man who has come into sudden wealth after the lowest depths of poverty.

"And now, mademoiselle,' he said, 'we will go and have some dinner.'

'Beg pardon, sir,' the porter put in, once more obsequious (for he had heard it all, and saw that the gentleman was on intimate terms with a first-class passenger), 'they can give you a very good dinner at the King's 'Ead.'

Hugh pushed past him without a word, and took Mlle. Eulalie into the refreshment-room. There they soon ordered a cold chicken and a bottle of claret, and fell to with the appetite of youthful hunger.

Whether it was the claret, or the tête-à-tête, or what it was I cannot say; but at any rate, as soon as they had done full justice to a very plentiful luncheon, Hugh began to speak a little more seriously to Eulalie.

'Mademoiselle,' he said, with a kindly smile, 'I don't recommend you to teach my countrywomen. You will find it a very hard and thankless task. You had much better turn your thoughts elsewhere."

6

'But, monsieur,' Eulalie said, looking prettier than ever, what

can I do? I am poor. I am educated for a governess. I have nothing else to turn to.'

‘Mademoiselle,' Hugh went on, 'you have youth and beauty. Why do you not think of marriage ? '

6

'Oh, fie, monsieur,' Eulalie murmured, casting down her eyes. (Were they then after all universally such dragons, these English ?) Mademoiselle,' Hugh said in a low voice, bending closer, 'permit me to explain myself. I am an advocate. I live at Bristol. I have means of my own. I am prepared to go back to Normandy, if you wish, and explain to this good grandpapa at Gruchy.. Mlle. Eulalie, I love you.

I draw a veil over the remainder of that interview. I will merely add, in fact, that before the train started for Bristol Hugh and Eulalie had arranged between them that Eulalie should go for the present to Miss Spurter's; but that Hugh should shortly come over and see her, and give proofs of his really being the person he represented himself to be. He did go over before long: and Eulalie went shortly after to stop with Hugh's mother at Clifton: and the good grandpapa received a visit from Hugh at Gruchy and declared himself perfectly satisfied that he was a person of honour and before six months were out the affaire Eulalie was settled to the universal satisfaction of everybody concerned. Hugh Portledown has stuck to the bar (where he is doing remarkably well, by the way), and Mrs. Hugh tells me, whenever I visit them at Clifton nowadays, that her husband and myself are the only two Englishmen she ever knew who could roll their R's with perfect accuracy. But then, you know, Mrs. Hugh was always such a delightful little humbug.

:

J. ARBUTHNOT WILSON

It was over at length, this terrible war that had caused so much desolation and woe; only women's hearts were aching now for those who had fallen in the building up of the new German fatherland. With tears and blood had the keystone been cemented, and now that it was accomplished the wide bridge spanned two new provinces, through which flowed the historic river. It was over, and the next thing was to count the cost; the cost for him who was signing away yonder, with his name, a kingdom, and who was then to find a grave on foreign soil. Over was it also for the fair-haired wife, who in lonely exile was to mourn a husband, and later an only son.

But there was another story underlying all this tragedy.

There were homecomings and laurels for those who returned victorious, albeit tears mingled with the smiles for those who had fallen by their side. And in this country house by the Rhine there was no personal grief to mar the rejoicing over the safe return of this only son, no shadowy form praying to be remembered, standing between him and the mother who had prayed so often that this day might be vouchsafed to her.

Although the arm in a sling spoke of the fate that had hovered about him, yet the mother's prayers had proved the stronger, and here he stood to-day, tall and slim, with blonde head and bright blue eyes, the faint gold of the moustache the only prophetic sign of coming manhood, and a faint delicacy on the still boyish roundness of his cheeks to tell of the broken arm.

The shaded lamps, the glowing firelight, the warm, comfortable room, by how many camp-fires had it not all been present to his memory! He looked at each familiar object, as though never in all his twenty-three years had he ever realised how dear it all was to him. It was just the same, no shadow had fallen upon it; only he himself was not quite the same careless youngster who had ridden away so many months ago, his eyes full of tears over the farewell words, tears which had dimmed the familiar landscape for many a mile, but which had vanished before the sun was high. He had been cheerily whistling by that time, he now remembered. And now he was back.

The terrible fate to which he had scarcely given a moment's thought had been averted. Others he had seen fall around him;