will be dreadful when both of you have left Melchester. Valentine
tells me that next Easter he expects to be going on to an army coach,
to prepare for Sandhurst."

"Yes, I know," answered Jack, petulantly. "I'm always telling him what
a lucky dog he is. I wish I had half his chances, and was going into
the army, instead of back to that miserable Padbury."

"What does your father mean you to do?"

"Oh, he's got some scheme of sending me into the office of some metal
works there. He says it's about all I'm good for, and he hasn't any
money to put me in the way of learning a profession. But," added the
boy impatiently, "he knows I hate the idea of grubbing away at a desk
all day. I want to be a soldier."

"I know you do, and I believe you'd make a good one; but, after all, it
would be a sad thing if every one devoted themselves to learning to
fight. Besides, we can't afford to let all our gallants go to the
wars; we want some to stay behind and do brave things in their daily
life at home."

"Well, I'm not going to rust all my life in an office," answered Jack
doggedly. "Rather than do that, I'll go off somewhere and enlist."

Queen Mab looked down and smiled. They were walking together arm in
arm, and he was fumbling with the little bunch of trinkets on her watch
chain.

"Do you recollect who gave me that little silver locket?"

"Yes," he answered, with a pouting smile.

"Well, then, please to remember that you are always going to be my own
boy, and so don't talk any more about such things as running away and
enlisting."

"Yes, but what am I to do? Look at the difference between my chances
and Val's."

"I think that a man's success often depends more on himself, and less
on circumstances, than you imagine," she answered. "'To be born in a
duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird if it is
hatched from a swan's egg.' That's what the story says that I used to
tell the children."

Jack laughed, and shook his head. He was far from being convinced of
the truth of this statement.

A few mornings later the usual harmony of the breakfast-table was
disturbed by the arrival of a letter from Raymond Fosberton.

"He writes," said Miss Fenleigh, "to say that his father and mother are
going away on a visit, and so he wants to come here for a few days."

The announcement was received with a chorus of groans.

"I wonder he has the cheek to come, after the way he treated us at
Melchester,