Herbert smiled at her intimate acquaintance with military details, and the smile seemed to give her fresh annoyance. ‘You’re a rude soldier. You shan’t come as orderly again. But here’--she remembered what she wanted--‘take this list to the barrack library; be quick, please, and bring me all those books. I want them at once, please, all. You understand? At once, and all; and when you come back bring them in to me--there in the back room.’ ‘Edith!’ said another voice just then, faintly and querulously, ‘you are losing the whole morning. Your French--’ ‘Oh, bother!’ cried Edith, and retired, dragging one foot after the other, as though loth to return to her studies. Herbert executed his commission promptly enough, and presently returned laden with books--some, but not all, of those for which Edith had sent. He carried them straight into the back room. ‘I am sorry to say, miss, that the “Loss of the Wager” is out, and so is Maxwell’s “Stories of Waterloo,” but I have brought you “Thaddeus of Warsaw” and the “Romance of War.”’ Then he stopped short, for he saw that the young lady was not attending to him in the least. Her head was buried in her hands, and when she eventually looked up her eyes were suffused with tears. ‘Oh, dear, it is so hard. I can’t make head or tail of it.’ It was only a French exercise after all, about which there was all this coil. But Edith was not an industrious scholar. In plain English, she hated books, and would any day throw them aside to get on her pony to scamper across the Hopshire downs, or ride out to the drill-field with her father, or to stand by at band practice, or accompany the regiment when it marched out. ‘I know a little French,’ said Herbert diffidently; ‘perhaps I can help?’ Edith stared at him through her tears. A private soldier know French! More, probably, than she knew herself! The notion filled her with amazement--with gratitude, perhaps, but also with chagrin. But when, after a few minutes’ close application, he untied the terrible knot, gratitude overpowered all other sentiments, and she could have shaken hands with him--almost--in her glee. ‘It’s most extraordinary,’ she cried, dancing about the room with delight. ‘I never heard of such a thing; you’re the most wonderful orderly--’ ‘You seem very merry, Miss E.,’ said an officer who put his head into the room just then. ‘Oh, Major Diggle! Just look here.’ And in a few words, volubly spoken, she explained what had occurred. ‘So you know French, do you?’ said the major to Herbert, in a supercilious tone impossible to describe. ‘And Latin and Greek perhaps, and Hebrew?’ ‘No, sir, not Hebrew.’ Herbert had drawn himself up straight, and stood correctly at ‘attention.’ He had already learnt the lesson of respect due to an officer, and was fully conscious of the great gulf which separated the major from the private soldier. ‘What’s your name? Larkins? Where were you at school? When did you enlist? And why?’