doctor, half smiling. Next moment he was gravely smoothing his chin with his hand, then the bald patch on his head, as if hand-rubbing would bring conviction to his doubting brain. "Um-ah-I hardly know what to do. Why can't you wait?"

"All the fun will be over

"It's a pity to baulk your ardour-I won't. It will be time enough when you are actually under orders for foreign or active service for the medical officer to interfere.”

"You have passed, Mr. Frere," said the colonel at length, holding out his paw to the bright-faced lad, an honour he seldom vouchsafed to candidates for commission. "I congratulate you-you're very young. So much the better, I was younger when I began."

It was all over, except to communicate the glad news to Major Frere, who, with anxious steps, paced the hall outside the board-room.

"I hope, my boy, you will be as successful through life as in this your first step. Trust in God always. Tell the truth, and behave like a can't go wrong then."

gentleman: you

CHAPTER IV.

STARTING.

"Ther mayst thou see devising of harneis,
So uncouth and so rich, and wrought so wele,
Of goldsmithry, of brouding, and of steele;
The sheldes brighte, testeres, and trappures,
Gold-hewen helmes, hauberkes, cote armures."
CHAUCER: The Knighte's Tale.

In those busy times, government offices worked rapidly. Three days later, when the major and Alured were eating their breakfast in Northumberland Street, the Times was brought in, containing the previous night's Gazette. In it they read :

"145th Foot.-Alured Frere, Gent., to be ensign without purchase, vice Robert Frere, killed in action.”

"So soon!" cried the major, with a sigh. Gall mingled with his joy, as he saw the names of Robert and Alured side by side. "But I

did not expect it for another fortnight at the earliest."

VOL. I.

E

"Let me look at it, father;" and Alured read the words over and over again, till they danced before his eyes.

"I must go and see Hastings about getting you transferred.”

Yes, my boy. I promised your mother to get you into a regiment not serving in the Crimea."

"Do you mean that I am not to go to the Crimea ?"

"Remember your mother, Alured."

The boy sat silent for a time; then he asked, "Who is Hastings?"

A friend of mine at the Horse Guards. He has a good deal of interest with Sir Octavius Wilberforce, the Military Secretary, you know."

Does it depend upon the Military Secretary, father?"

"Yes, of course. But you'll soon learn the routine of these things."

Sooner than his father thought, indeed. Alured now, for the first time, was to show

himself a boy of some character and determina

tion. He resolved to make his way in person to Sir Octavius, and to beg that he might not be prevented from going to the war. Naturally he kept his plan secret from his father; but no sooner was the major's back turned than Alured set forth on his momentous errand.

Although a perfect stranger to the streets of London, Alured boldly asked his way to the Horse Guards the moment he left the door of his lodgings; and, as the distance between Northumberland Street and Whitehall is not great, nor the journey intricate, he soon found himself within the hallowed precincts. Passing the mounted sentries, once more he inquired. "The Military Secretary's? Over there, under the arch. The same as the Commander-inChief's. Door to the right."

Ringing the ponderous office bell, Alured, with a sinking heart, waited to be admitted. They kept him a long time, so that he had leisure to look about him. The arcade was a thoroughfare constantly crowded with people, who swept by the mammoth lifeguardsman keeping watch and ward, as if they were ocean waves and he a fossil of the past. But he was

a living soldier, of real flesh and blood. His limbs were not always stony and rigid. Occasionally he performed to a select audience of brats and a bewitched nursemaid, who looked up to him as a colossal monolith of the King of England, the varied programme of a dismounted dragoon on sentry. Now changing, flamingo-like, from one leg to the other; now extending one by one the fingers of his gloved left hand; now varying the position of his carbine, which he lightly carried as if in his sight it were a toy, or he took a short turn, a yard or two at the most, merely to give him an opportunity of throwing back his shoulders or making his spurs jingle. A very stalwart and imposing warrior, who so absorbed Alured's attention that the door was open long before hs was aware of it.

"Is Sir Octavius Wilberforce at home ?" "This his not 'is private residence. It's 'is horfice."

"Is he here?

Can I see him?"

"Is your name down ?"

Ought it to have been put down first? I'm sorry, but it's an urgent case."