twenty-one years old; and then they were turned loose upon the
world, like a pair of young bears, with a couple of hundred pounds
of capital apiece to shift for themselves with. Uncanny, very;
I don't like the look of it. Not at all the sort of people an
impressionable girl like our Elma should ever be allowed to see
too much of."

"I don't think she was very much impressed by him," Mrs. Clifford
said with confidence. "I've watched her to see, and I don't think
she's in love with him. But by to-morrow, Reginald, I shall be
able, I'm sure, to tell you for certain."

The Companion of the Militant Saints glanced rather uneasily across
the hearth-rug at his wife. "It's a marvellous gift, to be sure,
this intuition of yours, Louisa," he said, shaking his head sagely,
and swaying himself gently to and fro on the stone kerb of the
fender. "I frankly confess, my dear, I don't quite understand it.
And Elma's got it too, every bit as bad as you have. Runs in the
family, I suppose--runs somehow in the family. After living with
you now for twenty-two years--yes, twenty-two last April--in every
part of the world and every grade of the service, I'm compelled to
admit that your intuition in these matters is really remarkable--simply
remarkable."

Mrs. Clifford coloured through her olive-brown skin, exactly like
Elma, and rose with a somewhat embarrassed and half-guilty air,
avoiding her husband's eyes as if afraid to meet them.

Elma had gone to bed early, wearied out as she was with her long
agony in the tunnel. Mrs. Clifford crept up to her daughter's room