all right, as long as I knew he was somewhere, happy."

She said almost inaudibly:--"I think that he is happy somewhere. You
know--but no, you don't know--that George was a born soldier. Those
months after he joined up, and until he was killed, were, I do believe,
by far the happiest of his life. He always said they were."

As he made no answer she went on:--"I'll show you some of his letters
if you like, and father will show you the letters that were sent to
us--afterwards."

By now they had left the garden proper, and were walking down an avenue
which was known as the Long Walk. It was here that they two, with George
always as a welcome third, used to play "tip and run" and "hide and seek"
with the then little children.

"Tell me something about the others," he said abruptly. "I'm moving in a
world unrealised."

She smiled up into his face. Somehow that confession touched her, and
brought them nearer to one another.

"Jack frightens me a bit, you know--he's so unlike George. And then the
girls? Is it true what Timmy says--that Rosamund wants to be an actress?"

There was a slight tone of censorious surprise in his voice, and Betty
reddened.

"I don't see why she shouldn't be an actress if she wants to be! Father's
making her wait till she's twenty-one."