Front matter (continued 2)

And I had to agree with him. I sometimes wondered whether any occurrence would effect an alteration in her.

She proved to be greatly annoyed by Miss Katherine's announcement. Miss Katherine had told me of her intentions, but under the bond of secrecy, and when she disclosed the fact that she had obtained a position as clerk in a bank, you might have thought, from Mrs. Hillier's deportment, that a lasting and intolerable disgrace had come upon the family. Nothing ever upset Miss Katherine, and even in our palmy days, she had always been the one to keep a serene temper; she listened now to her mother's severe criticism, and explained that the matter had been kept quiet for the reason that it was possible a failure might have occurred over the examination.

"The news is bound to reach Chislehurst," bewailed Mrs. Hillier. "And when we eventually go back there, I can't see, for the life of me, how it is to be explained."

"We must put it down, mother, to temporary insanity on my part."

"That wouldn't answer," she declared seriously, "because everyone is aware that there have been no signs of it on either your father's side or mine."

"Hadn't thought of that," admitted Miss Katherine.

"Weston," said Mrs. Hillier, appealing to me, "is it, or is it not a fact that in many cases a girl behaving in this way would, by some parents, simply be cut off with a shilling?"

"If you wanted to do so, ma'am," I said, "you'd have to borrow it."

"Not very tactful of you, surely, to throw my misfortunes in my face."

"Has to be done, now and again, in order that you should be reminded of them."

"Because I preserve calm," protested Mrs. Hillier, "whilst all around me are losing their heads and behaving in a hysterical manner, it does not mean, Weston, that I am indifferent to the events which are happening. Katherine must write a letter to the authorities at once, and say circumstances prevent—"

"You can't do that with a bank, ma'am. A bank has powers that a lot of other firms don't possess. People never dream of arguing with a bank."

"I didn't know, Weston," she said, weakly.

"High time you did," I declared.

I was glad to have the prospect of some money coming in to the household, and when Miss Katherine arrived home, after a day at office, I took care there was a meal ready, saw that she went off each morning in good time to catch her train to the City. I think the work must have been trying, exacting probably for any young lady brought up, so to speak, in cotton-wool, and I encouraged her to talk about it to me and to her sister; Mrs. Hillier declined to listen to any reference to the occupation. Miss Katherine, it appeared, reached the bank at ten minutes to nine, and engaged sometimes on the work of entering up pass books; occasionally she was given the task of writing up the waste book where the cheques paid in, on account of other banks, and sent out, were recorded. For the first time in her life, the girl discovered the necessity of being exactly precise, completely correct. Mistakes were not permitted. Miss Katherine described to me the machine called a totalisator that reckoned any figure you gave it up to ninety-nine thousand pounds.

I began to feel anxious again in regard to Mr. Hillier. He managed to catch a cold whilst walking on his beat during the early hours of a night, and thought of the expenses of a doctor worried me. I nursed the cold, and made remedies, and whilst attending upon him there occurred the opportunity of talking over his own prospects. He said, at the start of the conversation, that these could scarcely be discussed at any great length for the very sound reason that they did not exist; I assured him it was his indisposition which forced him to take this view.

"But I am simply not wanted," he argued. "That's the long and short of the matter, and when you have said that, there's nothing more to be said." Mr. Hillier gave a movement of the shoulders that indicated hopelessness. "The fact is, Weston, I was suited for one job in this life; fairly well suited for it. If it had not been for the war, I should have pulled round, and contrived to go on making an income. But there seems nothing else that I am capable of doing."

"Surely you could be a clerk, sir, in some office, and earn thirty shillings or a couple of sovereigns a week. You've got to pocket your pride, you know, at a time like this."

"All the pride I have," he said, "could go into my waistcoat pocket. The one that used to hold my watch. But it's impossible for me to go and beg a situation from the men I used to know, and the men I don't know just give a glance at me and shake their heads."

"But look here," I argued. "You're talking as though your's was a singular case. There must have been many others who came a cropper last August in the same way that you did. What are they doing now? They're not all moping about, surely, and wearing a hump on their back!"

"I have met only one or two. And they pretended they hadn't a care in the world, and I did the same."

"Oh, you men!"

"Face the difficulties of your position, Weston," he counselled, "and recognise them, and don't commit the blunder of attempting to perform impossibilities. The women of this family you may be able to manage, and in doing that you are achieving more than I have ever been able to do. But the men must go their own way."

"Trouble about some of you is that you don't know your own way, and you are too independent to ask. Why, bless my soul, there's work just now for everybody. Somewhere or other there's a job waiting for you."

"Wish it would give me a call," he said, earnestly.

I visited Millwood's shop in London Street, to settle for the articles of furniture he had bought for me; I had looked in for this purpose two or three times before, and discovered no one but a boy who appeared to have few other qualifications but that of impudence. On this occasion I noticed a small bill, lolling so carelessly in the window that it was with some pains I made out the announcement, "This Business to be Sold. Enquire Within." London Street was a thoroughfare where, since I had known it, there had always seemed to be establishments closed or on the point of closing; shutters were up at places, and, at others, announcements of selling off. The cheeky boy said the governor was not in, and would not be at home to receive company until six o'clock; he added that the governor was a widower and preferred to have nothing to do with ladies. "Me," explained the lad, "I'm just the reverse. Never 'appier than when I'm in their company. Always able to get a smile out of 'em." I made it clear to the youngster that he was dealing with an exception to this pleasing rule: he affected terror, and begged me not to be cross, or to do tricks with my features. He spoke of one or two remarkably good films at the local picture palace where the characters exercised this art with greater success, and illustrated his assertion by depicting for my benefit, hate, acute anxiety, murderous intentions, foiled villainy, triumphant love. I sat in the least dusty of the arm chairs, and my interest gained the boy's confidences: he told me that the occupation on which he was engaged did not satisfy his wishes, and that he had some thought of making his way to the interior of Germany, and there playing the part of an ingenious and successful spy, worm out all the enemy's most important secrets, and bring them back to be laid before our War Office. "One shake of the hand from Kitchener," he declared, with emotion, "and I sh'd feel I'd been amply repaid for my trouble." He was describing further magnificent projects when my brother-in-law came in. He gave a curt nod to the boy, and the young gentleman, after smoothing his hair with both hands in front of a cracked looking glass, put on a roller skate, and, uttering a piercing scream that conveyed satisfaction at the relief from business duties, vanished.

"That's all right, Mary Weston," said Millwood, in taking the money. "Glad you was satisfied with what I picked up for you. You're not a easy one to please."

"I find you looking a deal brighter than when I saw you last."

"That remark, coming from the quarter it does, is scarcely intended to be in the nature of a fulsome compliment. I know you mean it. And if you want to know the reason, it is that I am working 'ard."

"About the last thing, Millwood, I should have expected you to do."

"A justifiable comment," he agreed. "I admit I was getting slack. Loafing about in a business like this, and only moving when somebody stopped outside to have a look at the furniture, was enough to make anyone become blassy, as our friends across the water would put it. I showed a card, I did—'Don't hope for the Best: come inside and get It'—but it didn't stimulate matters. Now I'm at the Arsenal. A mechanic at the Arsenal: that's what I am. Getting good money, and earning it. I come back here of an evening, jolly well fagged out, and uncommon pleased with myself. And now there's the chance of you making one of your sarcastic snacks that you're reckoned pretty good at."

"Millwood," frankly, "you have every reason to feel pleased with yourself."

"Thank you, Mary Weston. Wanted to get the idea, you see, that I was doing something useful."

"There are one or two matters I'd like to talk to you about, but, first of all, there's this shop. It's no use to you."

"It's a incubus," confessed Millwood.

"You are trying to get rid of it."

"Anyone can have it as a free gift, if they'll only let me go on living over'ead."

"I'll take it off your hands."

Directly I had said this, and Millwood had recovered from his surprise, he began to hedge; I expected this. He explained that the phrase "a free gift" was used in a metaphorical sense, and that if he had realised he was talking to a likely purchaser, he would, of course, have selected his words more carefully. Millwood was a haggler from long practise, and I was something of a bargainer by habit, and we spent a very pleasant hour in coming to terms, with, on the one side, an amount quoted at first above and beyond all expectations, and, on the other, a sum low enough to provide a margin for increase. In the end, we agreed, and Millwood said that, so help his goodness, I was a hard nut to crack if ever there was one, and I said of him that he was as artful as a waggon load of monkeys.

"I'd nearly forgotten something else I wanted to speak of," I said. "This Arsenal work. Do they want more hands there?"

"They're nearly full up, but there's still a chance. If it's any working man of your acquaintance, get him to hurry along."

"And I suppose if he has some skill in engineering, it makes a bit of difference."

"Makes all the difference," said Millwood. "The difference between being a mechanic like myself, and something a good deal better paid. I know a fitter there who's earning close upon four quid a week. The work is indispensable to the Government, and the Government doesn't mind paying for it. But it's no child's play, mind you!"

Millwood, in regard to the shop, suggested a letter should be written agreeing that he could retake possession when the war was over, or earlier.

From that moment I was as fully occupied as one desired to be; perhaps a trifle more. There came first the business of getting Mr. Hillier free of his cold, and here I missed the assistance, by day, of Miss Katherine; meanwhile I threw out hints concerning the Arsenal, and he showed interest in the description of some of the tasks performed there. He confessed that in leaving Chislehurst the greatest wrench had been the loss of the workshop. "The one place," said Mr. Hillier, "where I could forget everything else. It was drink, and golf, and smoke to me. If Mrs. Hillier nagged, or the girls bothered, or matters went wrong in the City, I had only to go down beyond the garage, and put on a yellow over-all, and, for the time being, I was someone else. Those experiences can never come again, Weston."

I provided some additional information regarding the Arsenal, spoke of the convenient train journey. You left Greenwich, and passed Maze Hill, Westcombe Park, Charlton, Woolwich Dockyard, and there you were at the Arsenal station. Fifteen minutes in the train.

I knew Mr. Hillier well enough, and I understood his temperament sufficiently to be aware that the idea would seem much more attractive if he had the impression that it was his own, and that it had not been forced upon him by anyone else. Later, he put some questions about Trades Unions, and I promised to make inquiries.

"There is no hurry," he remarked. "I asked only out of curiosity."

Master Edward arriving home from school, made an announcement that astonished me, and furnished a new task. I ought to have remembered that a boy leaves the County Council schools when he reaches the age of fourteen, but I had so much to think of that the fact escaped my notice; Mrs. Hillier, on hearing this excuse, said it seemed to her my intelligence was decaying. Miss Muriel had been invited to pay a visit to friends at Chislehurst, and I was relieved from the task of looking after her: Mr. Hillier was making a good recovery, and I hoped my scheme in regard to him might be successful; the shop in London Street was in the hands of a firm of decorators who had promised to be out of it within seven days, from the start, and had already been pottering about there for three weeks. And here came Master Edward thrown back from school upon my hands; it appeared to be understood at Gloucester Place that it was for me to arrange the launching of him into business life.

"What would you like to be?" I asked, sharply.

"Really don't know, Weston," he answered.

"But haven't you any bent, or inclination, or——"

"I fancy the pater's notion was that I should go in for the law."

"You'll have to do something useful," I declared. "Something that will bring in a few shillings a week, without delay."

"Most chaps have a holiday when they leave school."

"Not in these war times. Just now, the country wants everybody to work. Don't let me hear any nonsense talk of that nature."

"Wish I were old enough to do as John did, and join the army."

"My dear lamb," giving up my manner of severity, "you ought to be thankful that you're young enough to be out of all this terrible business. Haven't you seen the poor wounded soldiers limping about in the Park, and on Blackheath?"

"They look happy," said the boy.

I sent a postcard to William Richards, and he hurried down from Charing Cross so soon as he was off duty. We met at the station, and I first took him along to the shop, where the elderly workmen were startled by the fact that I had brought a companion; William Richards supported my arguments with some determined words that they seemed to understand better than the milder language which I used. He said they were a dashed lot of adjective mikers. He declared his intention of calling on their adjective governor, and dashed well taking the adjective job away, and giving it to some other adjective firm. He assured them they had every reason to be dashed well ashamed of themselves. William Richards wore a bowler hat to indicate that he was free of railway service, but underneath an overcoat was his brass buttoned uniform, and I think the decorator's men were impressed by the sight of this. The foreman urged they were doing all that mortals could be expected to do; contended that a job, to be carried out well, should be carried out with nothing like undue haste. William Richards waved these arguments aside, and used some more of his resolute denunciations.

"Look here, sir," said the old foreman. "We don't wish for no unpleasantness. All we want is to live and let live. In regard to this job, we'll get a move on, and I promise you we shall be clear and away by Friday evening."

"Friday noon," directed William Richards, "and not a minute later."

"Friday noon it shall be," agreed the other, "and it's been a pleasure to meet a gentleman who can express himself so clear as what you have done. Mind that pail as you go out, and see that your lady friend don't take off any of the wet paint on her skirts!"

We walked around the old-fashioned market off Nelson Street, where the names—Underwood, Austin, Gladwin, Goulding, and others reminded one of country days—and considered the case of Master Edward. William said that so many railway men had left to enlist, and so many more wished to go, that it was an easy matter for a lad to obtain employment. All the same, William shook his head in a doubtful way, and happening to discover as he talked the phrase of infra dig, used it liberally. He remembered the family as it existed at Chislehurst, and declared it would be infra dig for any member of it, however youthful, to join the railway service. He could scarcely imagine that a gentleman who had once been a first class season ticket holder would become so infra dig as to allow his son to go in for railway work. The railways were not intended for infra dig people. In his opinion infra digs ought to offer themselves to loftier occupations.

"Go back at once to headquarters at London Bridge," I ordered. "Get a form of application, and send it to me by this evening's post. And thank you very much, William Richards, for being kind enough to help."

"I'd do more than this for you, Mary Weston," he said. "And well you know it."

Master Edward was sensible over the business, and rather pleased to be engaged on something like a conspiracy. We said no word about it to any of the others, and on a day when Mr. Hillier had gone out with the remark that he did not expect to return until late, I obtained permission to take the boy to London on the pretence of seeing the recruiting on Horse Guards Parade, and listening to any bands that might be playing. The application form had been endorsed by the head master at the schools, and by Millwood. At the head offices, Master Edward was told that he could start work on probation the following morning in a booking office at a suburban station: wages ten shillings a week.

"Bright looking lad, that son of yours," remarked a senior clerk, as I was waiting.

"He's not my son."

"A nephew, perhaps."

"Not a nephew."

"I see," he remarked. "You're just a friend of the family."

It occurred to me there were some grounds for hoping that this was not altogether an inaccurate description.

The announcement was made to Mrs. Hillier that evening and, fortunately, Miss Katherine arrived home from the bank in good time, and ready and willing to support the action taken. Mrs. Hillier complained that she was being treated as though she were a mere nonentity in the household, declared that it was high time Weston learnt her right place, and was made to keep in it, and to refrain from assuming responsibilities that, correctly speaking, belonged to others: Master Edward had described his own satisfaction with the arrangement, and Miss Katherine was inviting her mother to recognise the facts of the case, when Mr. Hillier came up the staircase, taking two steps at a time, and whistling as he entered the room.

"I've obtained a berth at the Arsenal," he announced, cheerfully, "and I feel as happy as a sand boy. Give me your congratulations, my dear."

"No," said his wife, distantly. "No, I cannot do that. That, James, is impossible. But I willingly extend to you my most earnest sympathy."

The last post brought a letter from Chislehurst which induced her to regard events with a slightly diminished amount of gloom. It gave the news that Miss Muriel was engaged. "I hope the man has money," said Mrs. Hillier. "I think we can trust Muriel for that. And, at any rate, it saves her from the peril of going on the stage!"

CHAPTER V

I paid little attention to the news from Chislehurst, although one was, of course, interested in Miss Muriel as in the others; the opening of the shop at London Street occupied in truth a good deal of my time and care. Mrs. Hillier, answering my invitation to look over the establishment, said that in view of my incurable habit of embarking upon adventure without consulting her, it was impossible for her to give any sort of countenance to the business, or make purchases there. I retorted that I had no desire to ask for her patronage, and I might have added—but did not—that in the circumstances, it was not much she could afford to buy. But the good lady appeared to find one of her rare joys in pretending that her money resources were as large as they had been before the war, and it seemed a pity to be always destroying the notion. Miss Katherine was the one who sometimes took me apart, and said:

"Weston, dear. How much do we owe you now?" It was to Miss Katherine alone that I showed the penny memorandum book in which I entered the accounts. The girl had given up her manner of talking slang; she said it was not approved by the best City authorities.

I gave Saturday to the new shop, and a part of Sunday (better the day, the better the deed) and on Monday morning, was there again so soon as I had prepared breakfast at Gloucester Place for the three working members of the family. Mr. Hillier left the house at six o'clock, Master Edward, being at present on middle duty, caught the train at half-past eight; Miss Katherine did not have to go until rather later.

The cheeky boy, at London Street, had been paid off by Millwood, and his mother called to beg me to take him on again. She was one of the helpless parents that London sometimes cultivates.

"I'm sure I don't know what'll become of him," she declared, rubbing eyes with the hem of her apron, "if you refuse to take my Peter in hand. He only wants looking after; nothing else. And hearing you talked about, Miss, as a rare good manager, why, it struck me that I couldn't do better than get you to look after him. You've got a chance of doing a good action, and I'm sure you'll regret it if you don't take advantage of the opportunity. It'll be on your conscience."

"If he comes back here, he will have to work. And work hard."

"Break that news to my Peter," she urged, "as plainly and as forcibly as ever you can. Give him a good nagging. He takes no notice of anything I say. I'd very much like," she added, tearfully, "that he should grow up a credit to me. It's hard on mothers when their sons turn out badly."

I took Peter back, but did not deliver to him anything like an address, or a lecture, or a heart to heart talk. Instead I provided him with a duster, and a bottle of polish, and other articles constituting an outfit, and gave him brief instructions. Ten minutes later, I found him behind a leather screen, and resting on a settee; he was concentrating his attention upon literature that dealt with the Adventures of Gideon Smart, Detective. I placed the journal in the fire, and Peter supported the argument of heredity by weeping; I allowed him to cry, and, when he had finished, pointed to the tasks which awaited his consideration. Used to the companionship of words and plenty of them, my silence impressed him, and so soon as he had finished one job, I provided him with another. Peter submitted later some brass candlesticks for my approval, and was honoured with a guarded sentence for which he seemed acutely grateful.

"Excuse me, miss," he said, respectfully, "but you're not much of a conversationalist, are you?"

"I'm a worker."

"Couldn't it be managed, do you think, to run the two, so to speak, at one and the same time?"

"Work comes first," I said. Peter gave the sigh of a man who regrets the eccentric rules concerning business deportment.

Neighbours looked in from shops hard by, and told me that their own trades were doing badly, and would, in their opinion, do worse ere they did better. Having said this with much cheerfulness, they endeavoured to assume a compassionate air in giving the view that of all the trades none could expect to fare so ill, in these exceptional times, as that which dealt with furniture; they spoke of the condition of affairs in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Their knowledge was never first hand, but had come from a cousin of a friend who knew a person whose brother-in-law was something of an authority on the subject. Certain of the older ones spoke of the days that were prosperous at Greenwich, when visitors came to the Ship and the Trafalgar, and climbed the ascent in the Park, and strolled about the town, and bought mementoes and souvenirs.

"Fifty year ago," said a watchmaker to me, confidentially, "you might have made a do of it. Now, it's like throwing your money down a sink. Besides, you women-folk always get swindled right and left when you barge in to affairs of this kind. By the bye, I've got a couple of grandfather's clocks you might care to have a glance at when you're passing my way. They're almost genuine!"

A proportion of Millwood's stock was useful only as fire-wood, and the covered yard at the back received these articles, making a pile to be drawn upon during the winter months. The mere eviction of these improved the look of the shop; the greatest change was perhaps effected by the linoleum covering of the floor which gave a fair imitation of parquet, and received the care of Peter when there was nothing else for the lad to do. Folk, hurrying past on their way to the station, observed the altered appearance and stopped to give a few moments of inspection, and I hoped some of them would come in, and at least inquire the prices, or make an offer where the amount was exhibited. Not until three o'clock on the second day did the first customer enter. He was young, and I wondered why he was not in khaki. He seemed pressed for time.

"You a judge of furniture?"

"I am," I said.

"Able to tell whether it's good or not?"

"Rather!"

"Care to take on a sort of a contract?" he demanded.

"If I can make anything out of it."

"How long have you been engaged in this work?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I answered.

He appeared satisfied with my replies, and, taking off his silk hat, explained his wants. He was a doctor and had to join the R.A.M.C. the following week. Before that date, he proposed to get married. The lady had remarked, in agreeing to the hasty procedure, that the drawing room and the dining room were to be set out with articles that possessed the quality of age; she drew the line at the accession of Queen Victoria.

"Now," he said, rapidly, "I've no time to go about searching here, there and everywhere, and, apart from that, I haven't the necessary knowledge. I may have hinted to her that I possess it, but as a matter of fact I don't know Chippendale from Wensleydale, or whatever they call the stuff."

"What is the limit, sir?"

"Two hundred and fifty," he said.

"Give me some references."

"Rather give you a cheque."

I set ink and pen before him, and he, demanding my name, filled in the slip.

"There you are," he said, preparing to run off. "I've made it three fifty. Now, I'm depending on you. Don't fail me, whatever you do."

It occurred to my mind that although he was trusting me, there appeared no reason why I should trust him. The cheque was drawn on a local branch, and leaving Peter in charge, and giving him enough to do to keep him out of mischief, I went along and saw the manager. He said the cheque, if paid in at once, would be met, and he suggested I should open an account of my own. I did this.

The milkman—an uncertain person so far as concerned rumours of large events—proved useful and reliable here. He knew, as not many knew, the financial position of establishments in the neighbourhood; his information, most likely, was gained from news collected in areas, and corroborated by promptitude or delay in settlement of his account. Also, he was able to tell me of houses where the furniture was old and valuable. By a stroke of luck, it happened that the very first door in Crooms' Hill I knocked at proved to be a place where my call was welcomed, and indeed expected. The three ladies there, facing serious reductions in dividends, had resolved to leave Greenwich, and go off to a cottage owned by them and already sufficiently furnished in Buckinghamshire. (When the transaction ended, one of them admitted to me that fear of air-raids and nearness to the Arsenal had something to do with the decision.) Terrified by the idea of a public sale, they had, the night before, made an appeal on their knees that some other means should be supplied.

"Providence has sent you," said the eldest, contentedly, "and, knowing that you have been selected to help us at this moment of trouble, we are willing you should go over the house, choose what you require, and name your own figure. Of course, it's a wrench for us to part with the furniture, but it brings with it the consolation that we are taking our share in the war. And it is such a relief to find that we are not called upon to deal with some man, with a smell of tobacco about him."

Their simplicity disarmed me, and their genuine piety forced me to deal with them in a more straightforward manner than I might otherwise have adopted. One or two of the articles were particularly good and valuable: there was, for instance, a Chesterfield sofa that would have fetched forty pounds in the open market, and I told them so, and advised them to take it, with some of the rest, away to Farnham Common. In the servants' bedroom I found three Queen Anne mirrors. I made up an inventory that included four-posters, cupboards, dining tables, suites of chairs, an Adam cabinet, two escritoires, some remarkably fine glass, and a few mezzotints.

On these last I was not qualified to put an exact value.

"I'll give you three hundred pounds for the lot," I said, handing over the list.

"No," remarked the eldest firmly. "Dear me no!" I prepared for the duel of bargaining. "Two hundred and fifty will be ample. We cannot think of taking advantage of one who has come here in answer to our prayers." The sisters nodded an emphatic endorsement, and I realised it was useless to argue with them. They asked, as a great favour, that the van which took the furniture away should attend at an early hour in the morning, before Crooms Hill was awake. "We don't wish," they pleaded, "to be the subject of gossip." They gave me a new prayer book, and I came away with the feeling that one had peeped into a world too good for a business person.

The young doctor was well satisfied with the transaction. He told me his fiancée said she had always known that his taste and selection could be depended upon, and he thanked me warmly for my assistance. To the milkman I presented five one pound notes signed by John Bradbury, Secretary to the Treasury, and when he realised that the notes were genuine and that he was not being made the target for a practical joke, he declared I was a lady well worth knowing, assured me that any information he possessed concerning the inside of residences at Greenwich would always be at my disposal.

The telegram informing us that Master John and my Herbert were leaving for the front arrived one morning when the working members of the family in Gloucester Place had gone off to their respective duties. A few hints had come before, but this information was definite.

"We shall have to hurry, ma'am." Mrs. Hillier was taking breakfast in bed. "There's no time to lose. Bustle about!"

"You are asking me to do something, Weston, altogether foreign to my nature."

"I very often wonder, ma'am, what can happen that will rouse you up thoroughly. There seemed a possibility that it was going to happen at Chislehurst but it passed off."

"With so much turmoil and excitement," she said, serenely, "going on around me, I feel it my duty to give an example of—"

"We must be out of this house in half an hour's time."

"But why on earth—"

"I'll tell you," I interrupted. "We're going to see the dear boys off for the reason that we may never catch sight of them again!"

"You always look on the dark side, Weston," she complained.

In the tram-car, on the way up to Westminster Bridge, she made it clear to other travellers that my position was that of a dependent, and this would have been continued throughout the journey, only that at New Cross Gate two jovial factory girls came in, and these, appreciating the situation, at once began to imitate her voice and her manner. Mrs. Hillier was silent after this, and when I explained to the two girls the task on which we were engaged, they stopped their raillery, and, apologising, told me that their chaps were abroad fighting; they insisted upon showing me the latest communications which had reached them. Our half of the car became friendly on this; other notes and cards were produced, photographs were handed around. A woman possessed a letter from the King's secretary, congratulating her on the circumstance that she had a husband and four sons in the army, and this broke down Mrs. Hillier's attitude of lofty reserve. She counselled the owner to have the document framed, lest, by frequent passing about, it should become creased and torn; the woman said this was a rattling good idea, and promised to act upon it. The factory girls left at the Elephant, and Mrs. Hillier shook hands with them; when we alighted at the Boadicea corner the passengers gave us a message of good luck to be tendered to the two boys.

"Some of these people, Weston," she said, tolerantly, as we went in the direction of Birdcage Walk, "are, after all, very human." I thought to myself that the same could be said of her whenever she cared to show herself at her best.

We found an enormous crowd outside the barracks. Inside the park, hobbled horses were at the sand place marked "This Space is for Children only"; the lake was empty. We stood on the high walk near the park railings, and could see the Guards drawn up on the parade ground; it was impossible to identify Master John or Herbert.

"Why didn't you think to bring the field glasses, Weston?" complained Mrs. Hillier.

"Because they were sold," I answered. "Sold with everything else that would fetch money. And try to recollect, ma'am, that this isn't a moment for asking silly questions; you're looking on at something wonderful. Something that you'll want to keep in your mind's eye for the rest of your life. Don't let me have to speak about it again."

The soldiers were allowed to stand easy for five minutes: their comrades ran forward to have a last talk. Orders were shouted. The men marched out four abreast through the open gates. The crowd cheered, and began to move eastwards; we followed and went at a good pace, but not good enough to keep up with the foremost ranks. There was no music, but the soldiers sang, and called out facetiously in unison, "Is the canteen shut?" and gave a shouted answer of "No!" Each carried his full equipment, and a tin of thick sandwiches. In Great George Street, when I had begun to think we should have to give up, Mrs. Hillier caught sight of Master John and they exchanged waves of the hand; encouraged by this she walked faster, and we crossed the bridge at a rate I had not experienced since competing in running games at school.

"Aunt Mary!" cried a voice, as they swung around into York Road.

"God bless you, Herbert, my lad," I panted. "And bring you both back safely."

"Don't forget to ask Him to do so," said my nephew. Some of his comrades thought this was meant as a joke: I knew quite well the dear lad was in earnest.

We went home by tram-car, too full of our thoughts to exchange a word with each other. That night, in my rooms at the top of the house, I obeyed my boy's directions. It made me think of the three ladies of Crooms' Hill, and I could not help wishing I had some of their placid and simple faith.

It seemed possible the departure of the lads would have a lasting effect upon Mrs. Hillier, and this, I believe, might have happened but for the arrival of her elder daughter. The others of the family were in good working order. Mr. Hillier returned at night, comfortably tired, ready for the meal prepared for him, willing to talk of the incidents of his new life, the men he encountered and the tasks he was called on to perform; all the satisfaction he had gained from his hobby at Chislehurst he was now securing at the Arsenal. Mr. Hillier often pointed out to me that the fighting had sent us back to a condition of affairs where the man of brains occupied a position inferior to that of the man of hands.

"It will take the conceit out of some people," he remarked.

"It's taken a certain amount out of you, sir."

"Agreed, Weston. It has improved all of us. Excepting—" He did not finish the sentence.

Miss Katherine came into the flat of an evening, justifying her father's assertion, eager to chat vivaciously of everything that had to do with banks, and her own progress in type-writing and shorthand. The first of these came to her easily enough; the second presented greater difficulties. Sometimes I read aloud a speech from the parliamentary reports and Miss Katherine took it down, with appeals of "Please, please, not so fast, Weston, dear," and then, apologetically, "You always are a bit of a sprinter in conversation, you know, and I expect it's not easy to get out of the habit." When it was finished, she took her meal, and then transcribed the speech from her shorthand notes, and read it aloud. Often, she had to admit that the result was incoherent, and not to be understood: I tried to comfort her by pointing out that the same might be said of the original, but Miss Katherine shook her head. "I shall never be any earthly good at it, Weston," she declared, hopelessly. It seemed that the qualification was not needed in the department where she was at present engaged, but Miss Katherine had hopes of promotion.

Master Edward, too, had been changed considerably by his railway experiences. His hours when on the early turn were from five o'clock, and when on the late turn from one o'clock; every other Sunday he had to give sixteen hours to duty, with three hours off for the mid-day meal. Later, he hoped to be transferred to a London station where the figure of wages was said to reach as much as £90 a year. The early turn was the one that troubled him, and indeed it was not easy or comfortable to turn out in the dark of a January morning. At times, when I knocked at his door, he would reply in a bright active voice as though he were fully awake, but I knew boys too well to be deluded by that trick, and I waited and knocked again until he came to the door and assured me that he would be ready for his cup of hot coffee within ten minutes. One of the compensating moments of pride came when I gave him on his birthday, a case of safety razors that I had picked up at a sale; he accepted it gratefully as a tribute to his age, and impending requirements. For the rest, Edward had to tell us of agitated passengers who came with a rush demanding tickets for the station which they wished to leave, of attempts on race days to ring the changes or tender notes of home manufacture, of the dislocation of time tables to permit of trains being run for Government purposes, of the cancelling of all excursion fares and cheap tickets, of economical parents whose long-legged children refused to admit to any age above twelve, of the head booking clerk who always began the day in the worst possible temper, and invariably ended it with perfect geniality. I daresay Master Edward lost some of his refinement of manners, and I confess I was shocked when I first heard him allude, one morning to "these blasted shoe laces."

"Oh," he said, answering my reproof, lightly, "you're old-fashioned, Weston. You belong to the antiques. By-the-bye, how is London Street doing? And who, just now, are you doing?"

I want to speak of Miss Muriel, but whilst I think of it, I must set down some reference to the collection of glass that I came across in a large house at Vanbrugh Park, where an old lady, the daughter of an Archdeacon who knew something besides Church matters, had recently died, leaving her property to a certain benevolent society, "because," her will said, "it has never asked me for a donation." Sales were not being well attended just then, and at each one that I went to—sometimes nodding frequently to the auctioneer, and sometimes keeping my head still—there were fewer of the agents, as they liked to call themselves, to be seen. A mixed crew, these, and inclined, at first, to resent the presence of a woman dealer; they tried, on one occasion, to pinch my fingers by running up the price of a fine horse-hair settee for which I had a purchaser ready, and I stopped just in time to compel a syndicate to take it; one of the members came to me later, and made a deferential offer that involved a loss on his side of two pounds ten. In the matter of the glass referred to there was little competition; a few private buyers were willing to bid for certain articles, but the fact that it was all comprised in one lot compelled them to refrain from making any offer. I have rarely been so pleased in all my life as when I took back to the shop in London Street that set of glass, cleaned it well and arranged it on dark wooden ledges. (In the result, I disposed of every piece, but I never parted from one without feeling regret for myself, and something like animosity towards the buyer.)

Let us come to the topic of Miss Muriel. She had been away at Chislehurst for some time; she and her mother had corresponded regularly and her letters, since the announcement of her engagement, seemed less querulous. Miss Muriel wrote, in one, a description of the gentleman's house, and this ought to have prepared me for the facts; as it happened, it was not until Miss Muriel brought him over one Saturday afternoon to be formally presented to the family, and I heard him below in Gloucester Place giving directions to the driver of his car that I gained the first hint of his age. He was speaking in curt, loud, and ejaculatory manner, and—just as well to admit it—I made up my mind at once that I was not going to regard him favourably. And this intention was confirmed when Miss Katherine ran up to my rooms at the top of the house, and said through the half-opened door—

"Weston! Weston! He's a bounder. A bounder from the village of Bound. One of the worst ever. Come down, and have a peep at him!"

I had to go back to the London Street shop, and ascertain whether Millwood was able to take care of the establishment and to look after Peter for a few hours; my brother-in-law proved quite ready to do this, and I fancy he took some pleasure in sitting near the window, and observing the interest shown by passers-by, listening to their comments, and, if they entered, to say, "You must call again when Miss Weston is here, unless you're prepared to give what's marked on the tab that's tied to the articles. I've got no power, mark you, to accept a farthing less!" In Gloucester Place, could be heard now the middle-aged gentleman's voice at the balcony, explaining how the trees in the garden ought to be cut down. Miss Muriel came out to the landing.

"Ah, Weston," she said. "Haven't seen you for ages. I expect you have missed me."

"In a sense, yes."

"Never a flatterer," she remarked, indulgently. "You might, at least, though, offer your congratulations."

"I've not seen the gentleman yet. But if you've quite decided, miss, to change your name, there's nothing more to be said about it."

"Your assumption is wrong. I don't propose to change my name."

"The engagement is off, then."

"Once more," she said, complacently, "error has crept, Weston, into your calculations. Mr. Schloss intends to take my name. He will become Mr. Hillier, and I shall be Mrs. Hillier. And he has an income that will enable me to live in the comfort I was once used to."

"Your handwriting, miss, is so bad that I never guessed he was a German."

Miss Muriel reprimanded me for the criticism of her pen, and for the suggestion concerning her gentleman. Mr. Hillier came out of the room.

"We don't talk to Weston in this manner," he ordered, closing the door behind him. "Weston is one of us. We owe a great deal to her, Muriel, in more ways than one. In fact, we are only just beginning to pay off the indebtedness. Kindly treat her in a proper way."

"She had no right," protested Miss Muriel, "to suggest that he is anything but English."

"I ascertained a while since," said her father, quietly, "that he was naturalised, rather hurriedly, in August of last year. And he has just admitted the circumstances to me."

"Nothing," she declared, in a tragic manner—"not even the extraordinary behaviour of my own people—shall ever part us from each other!"

CHAPTER VI

Miss Muriel went back in the car to her friends at Chislehurst, with the air of one who, for the sake of romance, was prepared to defy the world. She had always been spoilt by her mother (it is fair to myself to mention that the treatment was started before I entered the family) and Mrs. Hillier now took her side against the rest of us, declaring that a girl had to obey the instructions of her own heart, that love was something which could not be directed by those outside its influence, and that, moreover, it was a comfort to think there was likely to be an establishment available which would enable one to escape from the surroundings of Greenwich.

"Apart from all that," she argued, triumphantly, "a man can't help the country he was born in."

"He ought to help it," said Master Edward. The lad was the most strenuous of us all on the opposition side. "This chap should have gone back directly the war started. He has no business here."

"Pardon me," said his mother, "he has a business here. And a very good one, I am happy to say."

"I mean that when two countries are fighting each other——"

"You don't know what you mean," she asserted. "And, besides, you are much too young to have an opinion on a subject of this kind. If your father, sitting over there by the window, and saying nothing, had a proper control over his children, he wouldn't allow you to talk in this way."

"Do you want my view of the matter?" asked Mr. Hillier.

"Oh, no," she answered quickly. "No. It's all settled, and there's nothing more to be said."

"My view is," he announced, "that I'd rather see her cleaning doorsteps."

"I daresay!" said Mrs. Hillier, coldly. "That is because the Arsenal work has coarsened your outlook. Vulgarised your mental attitude. Twisted your sense of proportion."

Miss Katherine went to her father: Master Edward crossed the room to his mother. I left them as Mr. and Mrs. Hillier were beginning to offer apologies for hasty words. The day was Sunday, and upstairs—having the time to spare—I wrote the drafts of two notes; one begging Miss Muriel to come and see me and have a long talk, and the other asking her to think of the way in which her brother John, out in France, would receive the news of her engagement. I am supposed to be handy with my pen, but neither of these communications satisfied me, and I decided to take a few days to consider the matter. Instead, I wrote a long communication to Corporal Herbert Millwood, and sent in it an affectionate message to Master John. I tried to make the letter cheerful. "If you come across the Kaiser on his birthday, please wish him, for me, many unhappy returns."

William Richards called at London Street one afternoon. Whenever he had happened to say anything of a specially friendly nature—as he had done on his previous visit—William always stayed away for a considerable time, as though desirous of allowing the memory of it to fade, and he now seemed rather nervous; to conceal this, he told me three war anecdotes, which, so far as I could see, had no point whatever. I mentioned this, and he admitted that a story never improved in his hands. He gave compliments to the shop, remarked that Peter seemed a decent sort of lad, spoke of the large amount of traffic which was being dealt with by the Southern railways. He had heard excellent reports of Master Edward, and told me that the boy's appearance, speech, and behaviour had, by good fortune, been noticed and commented upon by the wife of the superintendent. After this interval of sanity, William again went blundering in and amongst tales from the fighting line.

"Now that one," he remarked, rubbing the top of his head with the peak of his uniform cap, "that one, I'll swear, appeared funny when I first heard it. And now it sounds simply chronic." He glanced at his large watch. "By Ginger," he exclaimed, "but time does fly when you're in pleasant company. There was something I wanted to tell—" He gave a fair imitation of a puzzled look. "I've got it," he said, triumphantly. "Piece of news I heard at Charing Cross. The Major of that lot that your nephew, and your Master John was in: he's been took prisoner. Good-day to you, Mary!"

The news was confirmed by a brief paragraph in the evening journal; I said nothing of it at Gloucester Place because it is rarely wise to go out of your way simply in order to shake hands with trouble. Far better to wait where you are, and let trouble, if it cares to do so, come to you. (Afterwards we discovered that all of us had seen the announcement, and each determined to make no allusion.)

The first information of a definite nature came in a letter from a Quartermaster-Sergeant. Addressed to Mr. Hillier, and written in pencil it said, "I regret to tell you that your son, Corporal Hillier, has been missing since the twenty-fifth January. He may be a prisoner, but we do not know for certain. He asked me, should anything happen to him, to let you know."

There followed a brief letter from my nephew, Herbert.

"We were surprised in a dug out," he wrote. "We ran in single line for cover, with machine firing coming across. John had no rifle. That was the last we saw of him. Tell his people to hope for the best. I was one of the few who escaped, but I am in hospital. Nothing serious. Love to my father, and to you."

There came a month of suspense during which we gathered scraps of news but nothing that re-assured us. The good Quartermaster-Sergeant, in another letter, said there were no further particulars; they could not say what had really happened; directly the battalion obtained definite information he would write again.

I went up to town, and called at Wellington Barracks; Mr Hillier paid a Saturday afternoon visit to the War Office; Miss Katherine communicated with a girl friend at Geneva, begging her to make inquiries of the Red Cross Society. During all this time, I noticed that Mrs. Hillier, eager as the rest of us, showed no tears, but she became more active in the work of the small household, and took duties that had hitherto been performed by the rest of us. She rose each morning to see her husband leave for the Arsenal, and kissed him before he went: kissed him again when he returned in the evening. No complaining came from her now. If she spoke of Master John, she referred to him hopefully.

An envelope arrived with the postmark of Cricklewood. We recognised the handwriting, and waited anxiously for Mr. Hillier to come home and open it.

"I am having this letter posted," wrote the Quartermaster-Sergeant, "by a comrade who is off to England, so as to avoid it being censored. Well, to tell you as much as possible, sir, about your son. We were in the forward trenches on the morning of the twenty-fifth of last month, when the enemy made an attack. Their trenches were not a hundred yards from our own. They had under-mined our forward trenches. They threw up some smoke bombs as a signal, and to blind their attack. At the same time, they exploded their mines. The result was that part of our trenches were blown up, and before you could look sideways they were upon us in thousands. The Right Flank and the Left Flank of our regiment stuck to their ground until overcome by sheer weight of numbers. Then, those that possibly could, retired to a brick field about eight hundred yards back which the remainder of the battalion (two companies) had turned into a miniature fort. This was known as The Keep. The Germans made violent attacks, all without any material advantage to themselves, on this position, but were unable to take it. And it was not lost when matters quietened down. Our trenches have now been regained, and our boys, I am pleased to say, managed to steal some of the German trenches.

"I am very sorry to say I can give you no good news of your son. I have made inquiries of the regiments who held the position after it had been regained, and one of the sergeants told me they buried over two hundred of our men. Some of them were found dead at the 'present,' ready to fire at the enemy, so you see it is no good telling you anything that might build up very great hopes.

"The strength of the companies going into the trenches was two hundred and seventy-six. Of these forty-six returned. Of course, we held a position where we did not dare to lose ground, and although it was a terrible business, it was a great victory for the English and French troops. At any rate, the enemy did not score much on their Emperor's birthday.

"You can understand how deeply I sympathise with you as none of us knows the minute when our own people will need the same. I have a father and mother living at Lewisham."

Mr. Hillier read this out to us, in a voice that broke now and again. His wife took his hand when he finished, and patted it sympathetically.

"I could hug the man who wrote that nice letter," I declared.

Herbert sent a note later from the hospital at Boulogne (where he found himself, after treatment at a dressing station) saying that he was nearly well, and ready to go back to the fighting line. "Have you any news of John?" he asked. "We were real good chums." The official communication came to Gloucester Place from the War Office, stating that Corporal Hillier was reported missing. His mother, showing greater industry in domestic work every day, and relieving me of half my duties, argued that the use of this word by the authorities proved that they were not without hope; the rest of us abstained from contesting this opinion. We knew that all the two hundred and thirty mentioned in Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright's letter would be reported in the first instance under the same heading. Mr. Hillier ventured to allude to the question of Muriel's engagement as regarded in the new circumstances.

"I have already written to her, dear," said Mrs. Hillier. "Don't you let that worry you. I've told her the engagement must be cancelled. After the way his people have treated our boy—"

"I was sure," he said, gratefully, "you would see the matter in that light."

"You can consider it as settled," she declared. "Weston," turning to me, "I'm going to cook supper this evening. And you are to sit down with us, please."

I was not at all certain that I wanted to join the family party at table, and I had my doubts concerning Mrs. Hillier's abilities to prepare a meal. As a fact, the dish she served up was excellent, and when we offered our congratulations she disclosed a circumstance that had been kept from everyone but Mr. Hillier; in her early youth, it seemed, she had been compelled to take charge of a household, and run it with economy. "But, mother dear," protested Miss Katherine, amazedly, "why in the world didn't you tell us this before?" Mrs. Hillier considered for a moment before replying. "I can think of no other excuse," she said, "than that of foolish pride." From that moment, I began to feel a new regard for Mrs. Hillier. It needed some courage to make an admission of the nature before her own children, and in front of me. We were very cheerful that evening (partly, I think, because we had resolved to keep each other's spirits up) and Miss Katherine, recalling a comment of mine when the letter from France was being read, sketched out a romantic episode in the life of the Quartermaster-Sergeant to take place after the war, with a wedding at St. Alphege's, and the bride offering a charming appearance in the latest confection from Dover Street. She suggested that business could be combined with sentiment if all the gifts were purchased at the bride's establishment in London Street.

"But I've never set eyes upon the man," I protested.

"The moment he sets eyes upon you, Weston," prophesied Miss Katherine, "his fate will be sealed."

"He may be married already."

"If he has, which I very much doubt, for he spoke of parents at Lewisham, but said nothing about a wife—if he has, I say, she is suffering from a nervous affection that will take her off in the nick of time."

"None of your widowers for me," I declared.

The affair of Miss Muriel's engagement was not settled so easily as we had hoped. She wrote expressing regret at the absence of definite news concerning her brother; she was also sorry to find that her mother had allowed herself to be impressed by occurrences which had no real bearing on plans agreed upon earlier. Her marriage was to take place on the twenty-seventh. Mr. Schloss had decided to set up a new home in the West of England: this, owing to prejudices which were being shown by folk of the neighbourhood who ought to know better, but were seemingly unwilling to listen to reasonable argument. Miss Muriel enclosed some verses of hers beginning, "True love knows no barriers."

My brother-in-law met with a slight accident whilst on the way to his work, and came home to London Street, depressed by the thought that he would be prevented for some time from assisting in munition tasks, discouraged by the knowledge that his wages would cease. I set him right on this second question by engaging him to look after the shop which he had once owned, and I gave Peter instructions to look after him and to see that he did not over-exert himself. Peter had joined the Boy Scouts, and had become such a dependable lad and so well spoken that Millwood announced he was prepared now for miracles of all sorts. (Peter's mother called one day at the shop and denounced me, up hill and down dale, on the grounds that I had marred and spoilt her views regarding the boy; she intended, it seemed, that he should follow the example of her two other children, and qualify himself for being sent by a magistrate to an Industrial School where the State would have accepted the responsibility of making a man of him. "And all my plans set aside," she lamented, "owing to your clumsy interference!") Millwood was glad to be able to go with the aid of a couple of sticks to his club again of an evening, although he complained that with Radicals and Tories working in hearty agreement over philanthropic matters, all the pepper and mustard had gone out of the institution. Millwood had given up alcoholic beverages for the duration of the war. "Really," he explained to me, confidentially, "I did that because I fancied it might please young 'Erb. I'd rather like the boy not to be ashamed of me."

It was near the end of the month that I went to town to see a customer, recommended to me by the doctor who set up the home of old furniture. He lived in North Street, behind the Abbey, and on the way back I looked in at Whitehall, and made inquiries. The officials there, although badgered by anxious folk, answered me politely. No news of Corporal Hillier. I returned from Charing Cross, where I happened to see William Richards.

"Hope on, hope ever!" said William, encouragingly.

I told myself in the train for Greenwich that I had come to the limits of my optimism, and that Master John was to be henceforth only a memory. I thought of his early days when I had first come into the Hillier establishment; thought of the pride we all took, later, over his first song; wondered whether there was perhaps some young girl, not known to us, who sorrowed for the loss of him. Crossing by the subway at Greenwich station, and coming up the steps I caught sight of Master Edward, on his way to late duty, and, to my pain and astonishment, dancing on the platform. His train came in before I could reach him, and give him a word of reproof.

At Gloucester Place, Mrs. Hillier waved gaily from the balcony; I assumed this was but a part of her new and improved method of conducting life. She disappeared, and a few minutes later came running—actually running—along to meet me.

"Sorry to say, ma'am," I remarked, "that I have no good news."

"But we have, Weston," she cried, exultantly. "The dear boy is safe. The dear boy is wounded, but he's alive. Come indoors, and see the card for yourself!"

It was a beautifully clean, white card, headed on the front "Field postkarte. Kriegsgefangenen—sendung," and endorsed "Geprüft pass zentrale, gouvernement—Lille." On the back the words, "Envoyez directement à la Famille." Underneath, the entries filled in with Master John's own handwriting.

"Je me trouve à.... Lille."

There followed Nom et prénoms, Regiment, Compagnie, Escadron. Then this message under the word Notices.

"Painfully wounded left leg, and rather weak."

I observed that, for the first time since the beginning of the war, Master John's mother had tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER VII

We all went slightly off our heads that evening at Gloucester Place. At first, there was a misapprehension on my side to be removed: I had forgotten that Lille was in the hands of the Germans, although the superscription of the card ought to have made this obvious; explanations made it clear to me now that Master John was a wounded prisoner, and that we should probably not see the dear lad again until the war finished. Master Edward, when he came home, was still so greatly excited that he omitted, for an hour, to tell us that he was about to be transferred to the head offices at London Bridge, where his hours would be fixed and regular, and escape effected from hot tempered and argumentative passengers. The recommending word of the superintendent's wife and his own engaging manner had to be thanked for the swift promotion. We regretted the absence of Miss Muriel; if she had been with us our party could have been reckoned complete.

"Really didn't think we should hear of him again," admitted Mr. Hillier. "With every desire to hope for the best, I had come to the conclusion John was lost to us."

"It will be something to tell the girls at the bank," mentioned Miss Katherine. "They have been inquiring every day, and they meant it well, I know, but it only seemed to remind me of—Anyhow," brightly, "the suspense is over. Let us be musical. We haven't lifted up our tuneful voices in song for a long time past."

"There's no piano," I remarked.

"Unaccompanied," directed Miss Katherine. "Edward, my laddie, if you have gone past the stage when you didn't know whether you were going to give out a high note or a low one, you make a start. Anything, except Tipperary."

We were joining in a chorus when a rap sounded at the door. I answered it, and, seeing the old lady and gentleman of the ground floor, assumed at once that they had come up to protest against the noise.

"Beg your pardon," said the elderly gentleman, "but—my wife and myself—we're rather quiet people."

"The singing shall be stopped at once, sir."

"By no means," he cried, urgently. "Pray do nothing of the sort. We are here to ask you if you would kindly leave your door open. Our sense of hearing is not so good as it was, and we want to learn the words of some of the popular songs of the day."

"Are you serious?" I asked, incredulously.

"Bless my soul, no," he chuckled. "We're not serious. We enjoy life. We're rather lonely, it's true, but apart from that you can look upon us as the most frivolous young couple this side of the river." He turned to his wife. "Always have been, haven't we, my sweet?"

"We married for love," whispered the old lady to me, nodding her head.

They had the appearance of people in fancy dress—she with ringlets and a lace cap, and a silk dress that, as my mother used to say of a remembered costume of the same quality, could have stood by itself, and he with large collar, black stock, heavy watch chain and fob, velvet jacket, shepherd's plaid trousers.

"Our compliments to your young folk," he said, with a bow, "and our apologies for interfering."

"You, like ourselves," she remarked, "are fortunate in having no relative engaged in this terrible war. Few have such cause to be thankful. We wish you good evening."

Mrs. Hillier came forward, and, breaking the rule which she had laid down regarding communication with neighbours, joined in the discussion, gave the news concerning Master John. The old gentleman, greatly interested, offered congratulations, and excusing himself, left his wife to go on with the talk. She with many antiquated protests—

"But I shall be discommoding you, I fear."

"I hope you will not look upon it in the light of an intrusion."

"Pray do not fail to tell me when to go."

Accepted the invitation to enter the sitting room, and giving a curtsey, felicitated Miss Katherine upon her singing, spoke of Madame Jenny Lind, Mario, Grisi, Sims Reeves. We were in the sixties, and forgetting all about the current year and its troubles, when she stopped suddenly. A jingling sound was heard from the landing.

"Do you mind," she said to me, "helping Captain Winterton? He is not quite so active in household duties as he used to be. I myself am just the same that I always was, but I perceive a change in him."

Captain Winterton had brought up a large silver tray that I coveted the moment I caught sight of it; the tray bore decanters of cut glass that would have looked well on the shelves at London Street; a cigar case had a flourished inscription announcing it was a testimonial from the passengers of sailing vessel Magnitude. The old gentleman wore now an embroidered smoking cap with a tassel.

"Sir," he said, giving up the tray to me, and addressing Mr. Hillier, "this is a great liberty, and no one knows it better than I do, but the circumstances must be held responsible. A few beverages, selected by me on my many travels, and I want you, sir, and the ladies, if they will be so good, to favour me with their opinion on them."

I went off to cut sandwiches. When I returned he was near the fire-place, making a speech. Old Mrs. Winterton beckoned to me. "Remarkably gifted," she whispered. "So much experience, you see, on board his ship. This is the only time I've heard him speak about the war." She laid a finger on her lips to enjoin perfect silence.

"—Goes off to fight for his country's welfare," Captain Winterton was saying, in the full enjoyment of oratory, "and fights, I'll be bound to say, like a gallant and determined Englishman. And although he appears to be now suffering from his honorable wounds, and is detached from his comrades, and his friends, I am sure he has the consolation of knowing that they are all thinking of him with affection and sincere regard, and looking forward to the joyful day when he shall again find himself among them. I drink to the elder son of this estimable family. I wish him a quick recovery, a safe and a glorious return."

I think Captain Winterton was slightly disappointed to find that he had succeeded in making no one cry but his wife: he assured Mrs. Hillier that in his happiest moments and his most successful efforts on the last day of a lengthy voyage, you might look around at the tables when he had spoken after dinner, and fail to discover a single dry eye.

"I may be out of practise," he suggested, wistfully. Mrs. Hillier assured him that she felt more touched by his remarks than she cared to show. He said that as time went on, one was bound to recognise alterations and differences; as to himself, he could perceive no great change in the last thirty years, but he feared Mrs. Winterton was exhibiting some of the marks of age.

"My sweet," to his wife, "we mustn't outstay our welcome."

"My dearest," she agreed, "there is your beauty sleep to be remembered."

"You are not going to hurry away like this," protested Mr. Hillier. "Recollect that we so rarely get visitors, nowadays."

Mrs. Winterton spoke of the period when she mixed in the best society that the neighbourhood afforded. Greenwich, she said proudly, was Greenwich in those times, and held up its head, bless you, and saw the aristocrats coming down to dine at the Ship; carriages arrived from London bringing the finest in the land, and the railway was still something like a novelty. Master Edward had seen at the head offices an aged picture of the earliest trains leaving London Bridge to the music of a band; the old lady said very precisely that this she had heard, but she had no personal knowledge of the occurrence, and Captain Winterton rallied her good-temperedly on the question of her age. "My sweet likes to be thought," he remarked to us, "as on the sunny side of eighty, but I can remember that when I first met her she called herself seventeen, and that was in the year of the great Exhibition in Hyde Park, and I could tell you what she wore at the time. She'd got on the prettiest little poke bonnet—you don't see anything so attractive in these days, if this young lady here will forgive me for saying so—a full flounced skirt and a waist so small that I could nearly go twice around it with my arm—" Mrs. Winterton took her husband off, and returned for the tray, and to explain that her husband's memory was failing, especially in regard to dates.

A few weeks earlier, and Mrs. Hillier would have resented the call from the elderly pair of the ground floor; now, she made friends with them, running down sometimes to have a chat with old Mrs. Winterton, and delighted when the Captain made a visit, bringing daffodils, "With respectful inquiries, ma'am, and hoping you continue to have good news of your boy." The best service they did to my mistress was in taking her mind from the war. It seemed that they were too advanced in years to give their mind to events of the day, however important and enormous these might be; they lived in the past, and to them we were all nothing but children with memories covering a brief period only. To Miss Katherine they became specially attached, although Mrs. Winterton could not approve of the idea of a girl engaging herself in commercial affairs; she spoke with pride of the days when no young women of good position had any other prospect or hope but that of marriage. To me, she confided a secret which I was not to disclose to a soul, or ask whence the information had been obtained; it was that on the day that the first woman was entrusted with, and exercised, the power of voting, on that day the world would undoubtedly come to an end.

"A great pity, of course," she said, nodding her ringlets and dismissing the topic, "but it can't be helped, and there you are, and that's all about it!"

Miss Katherine followed Master Edward's success by gaining a transfer to the correspondence office, where figures were less intrusive, and the work more varied. The weekly income at Gloucester Place was now as follows:

Mr. Hillier £1 17 6

Miss Katherine 1 10 0

Master Edward 15 0

We were able to settle up tradesmen's books promptly; there was some talk of a holiday to be taken, months later on, but economy had to be observed, and one of the improvements in Mrs. Hillier was noticeable in the fact that she now heartily supported my efforts in this direction. No more cards arrived from Master John. We wrote to him regularly to the care of the Information Bureau at Berlin, taking pains to give nothing but domestic news, and we hoped he was receiving these communications. At the Post Office I was told it would be useless to send parcels until he came out of the hospital; I was also assured it was unnecessary to do so, and from other quarters we gained that the hardships over there did not begin until the wounded men were away from medical treatment. Herbert sent me a cheery letter saying that he was back in the trenches, and mentioning that there was a chance that he might get his third stripe. Answering my question, he said that he knew Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright, and described him as a chap who thought a good deal of himself. My own estimation of Cartwright was not diminished by this, and I began to forward Punch to him each week, and the Quartermaster-Sergeant occasionally sent me one of the printed cards with everything crossed out excepting the line,

"I am quite well."

And

"Letter follows at first opportunity."

By asking Herbert what Cartwright was like, I meant that I wanted a description of his appearance. In the absence of particulars, this had to be left to the imagination. Miss Katherine pictured him as a tall man, florid and stout, with an enormous moustache, and using language at which she could but hint.

"Dismiss this particular romance from your thoughts, dear Weston," she counselled. "Concentrate your mind, instead, upon your railway guard."

"You and your nonsense!" I exclaimed. "There's precious little chance of me getting married to William Richards or to anyone else. My opportunities never have been great, and now they are less than ever. And it doesn't matter so much, for some of us, but I do feel sorry, when I look at the casualty lists each morning, for young ladies like yourself. Luckily, in your case, there is no one out there that you're especially fond of."

Miss Katherine said something in regard to the latest fashions. Hearts, she mentioned, were no longer worn upon sleeves.

There were several matters, and many views, and some fears, in those days which we kept from each other; the young people had long since given up at Gloucester Place the old habit of reciting dreams at the breakfast table. In my own case, I found that, awaking at three o'clock in the night, it was possible to consider the most dismal and gloomy aspect of everything. At that hour, all the good news was forgotten, and nothing but disaster could be anticipated. By day, there was generally some encouraging placard to be seen, and the announcement given, though not always based on fact, was undeniably cheering. ("Only two forts left in the Dardanelles," was one of these, I remember.) But in the small hours, Dreadnoughts were sunk by the dozen, U boats were doing as they pleased, German forces again came near to Paris; the enemy's navy was steaming up the Thames, and bombarding the college at Greenwich; my nephew Herbert had been killed by a hand grenade, and Master John was being kicked and starved. When these pleasing incidents ceased to dance about in my brain, there was always the business in London Street to offer a possibility of disaster. The number of times that, in my imagination, I saw the name of Mary Weston, spinster, figuring amongst the names in the list of receiving orders from the London Gazette, cannot be reckoned.

Water carts came out, and the green chairs were set in Greenwich Park, spring flowers made their bow, Gloucester Place brightened itself, children at the L.C.C. schools behind The Circus played their games more shrilly, and the river took on a cheerful air that had been absent throughout the winter. My brother-in-law Millwood, at the shop, complained that Peter's industry left him with no scope for exercise of the mind or body, and I sent him, with his walking stick, on a hobbling tour around the neighbourhood, and invested him with a task which I described precisely. He was to make a list, in no case was the sum to be higher than ten pounds, and in most instances the amount was to be less. Then I inserted an advertisement in a Woolwich journal that had a circulation amongst the Arsenal workers; a well displayed advertisement with a note to the effect that it would not appear again. The Chance of a Lifetime, it was headed, and it announced that Weston's had been fortunate enough to secure some Magnificent Bargains in the shape of Second Hand Pianofortes by Well Known Makers. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Do not Delay. A Rare Opportunity for Lovers of Music.

I have no wish to exaggerate the results of this notice, but I can say with truth that Millwood, and young Peter, and myself, had a busy time. There was plenty of money being earned in Woolwich, and all of it did not go in wastefulness, as some folk suggested: there were many families where the desire was to improve the interior of households. We became a sort of clearing house for pianofortes, exchanging them from establishments affected adversely by the war, and passing them on, by pantechnicon vans, to those where incomes had been improved. I remember an Arsenal man and his wife and young daughter called one day to make a purchase: they examined the cases only, and made no attempt to try the keyboard. They were puzzled which to buy of two that seemed to them equally attractive.

"Look 'ere, old gel," he said, at last to his wife. "One will look rather lonely. We'll take both." And this they did, paying the money down.

There was one attractive baby grand that Millwood picked up at rather above the limit fixed, and I arranged to have it delivered at Gloucester Place. It arrived there just as daylight was going, at seven o'clock. Miss Katherine had received but few tokens to call attention to her birthday, and one could not help guessing that she might be comparing it with previous anniversaries. A welcome card had come from Master John; she declared that this, in itself, was the best present any one could require. "Still in hospital," he wrote. "Leg progressing slowly. Am fairly cheerful."

The men with the van had done so much work on my account that they tackled the difficulties of the job in a determined and breezy way; they reached the landing of the first floor watched by the old Captain, who gave advice in seafaring terms that they did not pretend to understand. Miss Katherine came out.

"Weston, my child," she exclaimed, "they will never manage to get that beautiful instrument up to your rooms."

"They'd better not try, miss. It's for you, wishing you, with all my heart, many happy years."

"But," she stammered, taken aback, "you really mustn't, you know, do extravagant actions like this, dear soul, in war times."

"There's no one, Miss Katherine, in a position to dictate to me how I shall spend my money." She tried to conceal her emotion by making some reference to the Quartermaster-Sergeant.

There could be no doubt that the new pianoforte—new to the Hilliers, anyway—did manage to cheer and brighten up the establishment. Now that Miss Katherine and Master Edward were exempt from the direction of music teachers, they practised and played of their own will instead of being driven to the keyboard. The family began to talk of other additions in the way of furniture, to be exhibited as a surprise and a gratification to Master John when he returned. Mrs. Hillier admitted to me that she was becoming as house-proud as she had been in the early days of her married life.

And into the comfortable group suddenly arrived Miss Muriel. Miss Muriel, fresh from the large house of her friends at Chislehurst, and losing no time in complaining of the want of room at Gloucester Place, of Weston's position of equality at table, of her father's appearance when he returned from the Arsenal, and indeed of everything that lent itself to criticism. She was allowed a free tongue at first, but when she returned to the grievance that concerned me, her mother interposed. Miss Muriel followed me out of the room, and offered a kind of defiant apology.

"What's wrong, miss?" I inquired. "You were always rather difficult, but I should have thought that this war—"

"I am under no obligation to the war."

"Few of us are, but we can't help being influenced by it. People who, before it started, had good expectations, find themselves with none, and folk who used to be on their beam ends, so to speak, are now doing well. It's all according to whether a person is of any real use, or not."

"I can't pretend," said Miss Muriel, "to be greatly interested in the fortune of others. To compensate for that, I am enormously interested in my own."

"We are all hoping, miss, that your engagement has been cancelled."

"An amiable wish," she retorted, "that has been anticipated by events. Mr. Schloss is interned. Interned by the astonishing authorities of this country."

"Very glad to hear it," I said, genuinely. "And now that you are amongst us again, I trust you'll make yourself as amiable as possible, and we, on our side, will try to recognise that it's hard on you, miss, to have been disappointed in love."

"Not disappointed in love, Weston. Disappointed in money would be a more correct phrase."

"Upon my word!" I exclaimed warmly. "I can't make it out at all. I'm sometimes inclined to look on you as a bit of a freak."

"At last," said Miss Muriel, "I have achieved a notable success. I have contrived to make our Weston really angry. No one can say now that I have lived in vain."

The others, as has been hinted, had adopted the habit of looking after themselves, but Miss Muriel exacted from me all the attention to which she had a right in the old days. I found myself doing lady's maid work. She did not do a hand's stroke in any of the domestic tasks. She bewailed the circumstance that her friends at Chislehurst, answering her appeal, wrote that they regretted it was impossible to offer a fresh invitation; I pointed out to Miss Muriel that it was always an error in tactics to remain at people's house for an undue length of time. In her trunk, I found a packet, carefully sealed, and I put a question regarding the contents; she recommended that I should mind my own business. Later, she mentioned that the parcel held documents which she believed were of high importance, and asked whether at London Street there happened to be a fire-proof safe.

"I can get one," I said. "Been thinking about purchasing one for some while past. After our experience at The Croft, we can't be too careful."

"Take charge of the packet now, Weston," she begged. "The responsibility will be off my mind."

"Do I understand that you don't actually know what is inside?"

"I can trust you," she said, after a moment's pause. "You are queer, but you are reliable. Mr. Schloss gave this to me just before the police called on him. I promised to look after it until all the trouble was over. And that cannot be long now."

I bought a good second-hand safe, and Peter took a leather, and polished up the brass handle, and the cover of the lock; set in a corner of the shop it would give a solid, business-like look calculated to impress people who came to inspect furniture. Whilst the lad was engaged on the work, my attention was taken by a group from Charlton who had called to see about a pianoforte; the woman who desired to buy had brought with her half a dozen experts made up of female relatives and neighbours. When they had gone, I turned and found Millwood and Peter endeavouring to move the heavy safe to the place chosen for it.

"Mind that packet on the floor!" I cried.

The safe, in moving, crunched over the parcel entrusted to me by Miss Muriel, smashing the seals. I contrived to make the two understand what I thought of such clumsy behaviour; Peter offered to obtain a stick of wax from the shop not far off, and declared confidence in his ability to repair the damage. Millwood said it was a good job the parcel contained nothing of a breakable nature.

It was sheer curiosity that induced me to look at the papers inside; I found little to repay me, for the letters were all written in a language I did not understand. Millwood was prepared to take his oath that the language was German.

"You'd best be careful, Mary Weston," he said. "You mind out what you're a doing of. Otherwise you'll find yourself at the Tower. They don't make no bones about shooting nobody, not nowadays, they don't!" Millwood was giving more advice, when William Richards looked in. The two men never liked each other; in earlier days they always wrangled on political subjects, and now, in view of the truce agreed upon regarding these topics, Millwood, with the comment of "Hullo! Not dead yet, then?" went into the back room.

William Richards wanted news of Herbert, and of Master John. He hoped the Germans would deal with Master John fairly, but admitted he could not trust them in this or in any other particular. When we had discussed the subject, I told him about the parcel, submitted the documents. William shook his head gravely. "If only Dickenson was here!" he said. It appeared that Dickenson was a uniformed interpreter, known to William, and for the number of languages with which Dickenson was acquainted you needed the fingers of both hands, and the thumbs as well.

"Look here, Mary Weston," he said. "Hand 'em over to me. Just as they are. You shan't be dragged into the affair. I shall tell Dickenson I found the parcel on the floor of a second-class smoking. If they're nothing more than love letters, or business communications, you shall have 'em back!" Peter arrived with the sealing wax, but we decided that the present condition of the parcel should remain.

Mr. Schloss was tried a few weeks later on a charge of attempting to deal with the enemy, and he received a sentence of twelve months hard labour. Miss Muriel, terrified and penitent, begged me to destroy the parcel she had confided to my care, lest the contents should have any bearing on the matter, and, in promising her that she might depend upon me, I gave her about the straightest talking to that she had ever received in the whole course of her existence.

"It will be a lesson to me," she declared penitently.

"But some of you," I remarked, "want such a lot of teaching!"

Old Captain Winterton, in his determination not to discuss war news, fell back on reminiscences, and if he sometimes told these more than once, the Hillier family nevertheless gave him their attention; although he talked in an elaborate manner, they made no attempt to interrupt. I could not help comparing their Greenwich methods with those adopted at Chislehurst. He had three anecdotes and to these his wife listened eagerly and expectantly, sometimes whispering to me, after the twentieth or so repetition,

"You'll like this, Miss Weston."

And.

"This is new to you, I expect."

She joined in the expressions of amusement with great heartiness. The first story was of the lady who feared that if the storm continued she might find herself in Heaven, and wanted to be re-assured. ("Depends on the life you've led, madam.") The second was of the sailor who reported that Jim Bates had been blown overboard. ("And that ain't the worst, cap'en. He's took my pail with him!") The third was so long and so much involved, and required such an amount of preliminary description that the old fellow never reached the point of it, and we, at times, wondered if any point existed. I liked him best when he described Greenwich, at Easter, in the old days at the period when Richardson's Fair was held at the end of what is still known as Tea-pot Row, although its proper name is King William Street, and all the tag, rag and bob-tail came from far and near, and to carry a watch in one's pocket was to make a present of it to somebody with light fingers, and the taverns did a roaring trade; all this, it appeared, came to an end in '57. Of the time when London folk drove down in hackney coaches, and the men wore veils to their white top hats, and the ladies wore crinolines, and they had joyous hours at the Ship or the Trafalgar, and gave incredible tips to waiters, and started for home singing "Slap bang, here we are again!" Of more demure parties of statesmen who came, once a year, by steamer, from near to Westminster Bridge, and were reported to chat over the table of other matters than Cabinet secrets, and to consume quantities of old port, and, at any rate, returned in a sleepy condition, ignoring the cheers raised by their local supporters, and the groans given by their opponents. Of crime connected with the borough—

"Love," interposed Mrs. Winterton, "be careful not to shock the young ladies!"

"I will be most cautious, sweet!"

And, in particular, of one Charles Peace whose real name, it seemed, was John Warne, and who on a night in October shot three times at Constable Robinson in an avenue leading from St. John's Park to Blackheath; shot with a revolver that was strapped around Peace's wrist. Captain Winterton had learnt, word for word, the statement made by Peace when Mr. Justice Hawkins asked him whether he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him, and the old chap spared us nothing of this, from—"I have not been fairly dealt with, and I declare before God that I never had any intention to kill the prosecutor—" to "So, my Lord, have mercy upon me; my lord, have mercy upon me!" Peace lived for a time at Greenwich, in a well-furnished house where he sometimes gave musical evenings.

"I always give myself the satisfaction," said Captain Winterton, with relish, "of gazing at the dwelling whenever I happen to pass that way."

If he began to tell the story of the murder of Jane Maria Clousen—discussed and debated at Greenwich to this hour, because no one was hanged for it—Mrs. Winterton placed hands over her ears. Miss Clousen it seemed was, in '71, a domestic servant in the employment of a Greenwich printer; she was found in Kidbrooke Lane, Eltham, on the edge of death, murmuring, "Oh my poor head, oh my poor head!" and the acquittal of a young man, charged with the crime, was followed by noisy and disorderly gatherings outside his father's house, and proceedings at law for libel.