haired man, who
read the letter, made a few inquiries and put him through a brief
examination.

"Your information is varied and peculiar," he said, "and not of the
sort that generally appeals to Her Majesty's examiners. Still, I see
that you have intelligence and, of course, the French is an asset; also
the literature to some extent, and the Latin, though these would have
counted more had you been going up for the Indian Civil. I think we can
get you through in three months if you will work; it all depends on
that. You will find a lot of young men here of whom quite seventy per
cent. do nothing, except see life. Very nice fellows in their way, but
if you want to get into Sandhurst, keep clear of them. Now, my term
opens next Monday. I will write to General Cubitte and tell him what I
think of you, also that the fees are payable in advance. Good-bye, glad
you happened to catch me, which you would not have done half an hour
later, as I am going out of town. At ten o'clock next Monday, please."

After this, not knowing what to do, Godfrey returned to the Great
Eastern Hotel and wrote a letter to his father, in which, baldly
enough, he explained what had happened.

Having posted it in the box in the hall, he bethought him that he must
find some place to live in, as the hotel was too expensive for a
permanence, and was making inquiries of the porter as to how he should
set about the matter when a telegram was handed to him. It ran: "All up
as I expected. Meet me Liverpool Street 4.30.--Nurse."

So Godfrey postponed his search for lodgings, and at the appointed hour
kept the assignation on the platform. The train arrived, and out of it,
looking much more like her old self than she had on the previous day,
emerged Mrs. Parsons with the most extraordinary collection of bundles,
he counted nine of them, to say nothing of a jackdaw in a cage. She
embraced him with enthusiasm, dropping the heaviest of the parcels,
which seemed to contain bricks, upon his toe, and in a flood of
language told him of the peculiar awfulness of the row between his
father and herself which had ensued upon his departure.

"Yes," she ended, "he flung my money at my head and I flung it back at
his, though afterwards I picked it up again, for it is no use wasting
good gold and silver. And so here I am, beginning life again, like you,
and feeling thirty years younger for it. Now, tell me what you are
going to do?"

Then they went and had tea in the re