that was going on near the crest of the downs. It signified
nothing to Bert.

"What's up?" said Edna.

"Oh!--manoeuvres," said Bert.

"Oh! I thought they did them at Easter," said Edna, and troubled
no more.

The last great British war, the Boer war, was over and forgotten,
and the public had lost the fashion of expert military criticism.

Our four young people picnicked cheerfully, and were happy in the
manner of a happiness that was an ancient mode in Nineveh. Eyes
were bright, Grubb was funny and almost witty, and Bert achieved
epigrams; the hedges were full of honeysuckle and dog-roses; in
the woods the distant toot-toot-toot of the traffic on the
dust-hazy high road might have been no more than the horns of
elf-land. They laughed and gossiped and picked flowers and made
love and talked, and the girls smoked cigarettes. Also they
scuffled playfully. Among other things they talked aeronautics,
and how thev would come for a picnic together in Bert's
flying-machine before ten years were out. The world seemed full
of amusing possibilities that afternoon. They wondered what
their great-grandparents would have thought of aeronautics. In
the evening, about seven, the party turned homeward, expecting no
disaster, and it was only on the crest of the downs between
Wrotham and Kingsdown that disaster came.