ight have been able to find some slight consolation
in announcing the fact to her friends. Now she would have to make the
humiliating admission that he was nothing more than a common
trooper--after which she felt she would never be able to hold up her
head again!

As things turned out, these apprehensions proved unfounded. For it
seemed that other young Gablehurst men belonging to families in as good
a position as her own had enlisted as privates, and, so far from being
considered to have brought discredit on their parentage, were regarded
with general approval.

And the pride with which their mothers spoke of them encouraged Mrs.
Wibberley-Stimpson to be even prouder of Clarence, as the only one who
had joined a Cavalry regiment.

When he was undergoing the necessary training with the reserve regiment
and first had to enter the Riding-School, he was prepared, remembering
how suddenly and completely his control of Maerchenland horses had left
him, for some highly unpleasant experiences.

Daphne's pendant had been left in safe custody at Inglegarth, and, even
if he had had any idea that it had assisted his horsemanship (which he
was far from suspecting), he would not have brought it with him, lest he
should lose a thing which Daphne had said he would please her by
keeping.

Probably, had he brought and been allowed to wear the token, it would
not have made any impression whatever on the mind of a British
charger--but fortunately no talisman was needed.

All the riding in Maerchenland, while his horses continued docile, had
not been without some good result after all. At least he found that he
had quite as good a seat as any of his fellow-recruits, and a very much
better one than most of them.

And the months of training passed, not unhappily. He made friends, not
all of them in his own class; he set himself to learn his job as quickly
and thoroughly as he could, and his sergeant-major spoke of him, though
not in his presence, as a smart young chap who showed more sense than
some he had to do with.

He had not been many weeks in the regiment before he got his first
stripe, and when he came home on furlough he was able to inform his
family that he had just been promoted to be a full-blown Corporal. It
was a farewell visit, as he was being sent out in a day or two with a
draft to his regiment at the Front. He had grown broader across the
chest, and looked extremely brown and fit, while his family noticed that
he