ve fought and conquered long before peaceful, sleepy
England knew what war really meant. There was great comfort in that
thought.

* * * * *

As that second Saturday of August wore itself away, it is not too much
to say that the most interesting thing connected with the War which had
happened in Witanbury Close was the fact that Jervis Blake was now going
to be a soldier. When people met that day, coming and going about their
business, across the lawn-like green, and along the well-kept road which
ran round it, they did not discuss the little news there was in that
morning's papers. Instead they at once informed one another, and with a
most congratulatory air, "Jervis Blake has heard from the War Office!
He is going into the Army after all. Mr. and Mrs. Robey are _so_
pleased. The whole family went to the station with him this morning!"

And it was quite true that the Robeys were pleased. Mr. Robey was
positively triumphant. "I can't tell you how glad I am!" he said, first
to one, and then to the other, of his neighbours. "Young Blake will make
a splendid company officer. It's for the sake of the country, quite as
much as for his sake, and for that of his unpleasant father, that I'm
glad. What sort of book-learning had Napoleon's marshals? Or, for the
matter of that, Wellington's officers in the Peninsula, and at
Waterloo?"

As the day went on, and he began receiving telegrams from those of his
young men--they were not so very many after all--who had failed to pass,
containing the joyful news that now they were accepted, his wife,
instead of rejoicing, began to look grave. "It seems to me, my dear,
that our occupation in life will now be gone," she said soberly. And he
answered lightly enough, "Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof!"
And being the high-minded, sensible fellow that he was, he would allow
no selfish fear of the future to cloud his satisfaction in the present.

* * * * *

The only jarring note that day came from James Hayley. He had had to
take a later train than he had thought to do, and he only arrived at the
Trellis House, duly dressed for dinner, just before eight.

"Witanbury is certainly a most amusing place," he observed, as he shook
hands with his pretty cousin. "I met two of your neighbours as I came
along. Each of them informed me, with an air of extreme delight, that
young Jervis Blake had heard from the War Office that,