Mary Gray

by a grateful country for services in the field. A second baronetcy in the family had been specially created for Sir Gerald. It would not have been easy to say which was the finer soldier of the tw

y the British public, which calls its heroes by their Christian names a

rtation out of a verse of Scripture as ever he needed. Sir Denis, like many old soldiers, was quite a devout man in his way; but he had none of the zealot passion of his younger brother. The hidden fires which had given Sir Gerald a certain haggardness of aspect, as though a sculptor

c appearance, for he had been so long a Londoner that now the London crowd knew him and had a sense of possession in him. His rosy face would beam all over when the crowd shouted itself hoarse for "Old Blood and Thunder." He did not at all object to the name, which had filte

be a refuge of rapscallions. "Straighten your shoulders, sir; hold your head high; for, remember that you are now a soldier!" he would say to the newest recruit who had just scraped through with a margin of chest. His thunderous wr

would say to his daughter Nelly. "The poor fel

e, a very beautiful young girl, who had fallen in love

the period of his foreign service was all but at an end. Wherever he had his command the child and her nurse were always within riding distance. He did not believe in barracks and towns fo

h, had found the ideal school for Nelly-a school where the daughters of the aristocracy were kept in a conventual seclusion while they learnt as little as might be of the s

tence of interviewing the Misses de Crespigny, by

stem adopted at De Crespigny House. Then he had torn it all to pieces as on

mothers?" he asked, with his air of convincing simplicity. "Do you tea

here was an indelicacy about the Gener

s' mothers to teach them a

s philanthropy or politics, or just amusing themselves, they've all got too much to do," Sir Denis s

ry bones of teaching had been clothed with life. The house was perched on a high, windy cliff. The sisters, Miss Stella and Miss Clara, Miss L

t have been easy to find a fresher, franker specimen of young girlhood. I

y girl to myself for a little while. Afterwards there is that arrangement of the Dowager's about Nelly and Robin. I don't care for the marria

ggested to her that she should go to a smart finishing school for

hall see all you want to see. There are quiet nooks and corners to be had, even in London. I think I know the one I shall choose. Be a good gir

ame Celeste's," said Nelly, dimpling and sparkling.

talking to your commanding officer. Ran

ied. "I'm going to stay. A finishing sch

done his best to ward off the things that might happen. Now he was going to trust in Providence and keep his little girl with him. To be sure, he had know

cted by any of them. She was kind and friendly and engaging; but she was unconscious wi

for the years to come? Unless-unless, that fellow Robin had been beforehand with the others-Robin, who had refused point-blank to be a soldier, and had even, to the General's bitter offence, actually spoken at the Oxford Union "On the Waste and Wickedness of a

ts of Nelly's baby bottles, and had infuriated Nelly's wholesome country nurse to the point of departure. The General had come just in time then to find Mrs. Loveday fastening the cherry-coloured strings of her bonnet with fingers t

e contrite. But then the grievance would revive of a far-back Quaker ancestor of Lady Drummond, whom th

seemed to be enough for her. At one moment they gave him the fullest assurance; the next he was in heats