"Hallo, Armstrong! still here? Have you been sitting there since I left you?" he asked, with a smile and look of surprise. "Oh no!" answered his friend; "not all the time. We have been out walking about town, and we have had dinner here--an excellent feed, let me tell you, and cheap too. But where did you run off to?" "Sit down and I'll tell you," said Miles. Thereupon he related all about his day's experiences. When he had finished, Armstrong told him that his own prospect of testing the merits of a troop-ship were pretty fair, as he was ordered for inspection on the following day. "So you see," continued the young soldier, "if you are accepted--as you are sure to be--you and I will go out together in the same vessel." "I'm glad to hear that, anyhow," returned Miles. "And _I_ am very glad too," said little Emily, with a beaming smile, "for Willie has told me about you, Mr Miles; and how you first met and took a fancy to each other; and it _will_ be so nice to think that there's somebody to care about my Willie when he is far away from me." The little woman blushed and half-laughed, and nearly cried as she said this, for she felt that it was rather a bold thing to say to a stranger, and yet she had such a strong desire to mitigate her husband's desolation when absent from her that she forcibly overcame her modesty. "And I want you to do me a favour, Mr Miles," she added. "I'll do it with pleasure," returned our gallant hero. "I want you to call him Willie," said the little woman, blushing and looking down. "Certainly I will--if your husband permits me." "You see," she continued, "I want him to keep familiar with the name I've been used to call him--for comrades will call him Armstrong, I suppose, and--" "Oh! Emmy," interrupted the soldier reproachfully, "do you think I require to be _kept in remembrance_ of that name? Won't your voice, repeating it, haunt me day and night till the happy day when I meet you again on the Portsmouth jetty, or may-hap in this very room?" Miles thought, when he heard this speech, of the hoped-for meeting between poor Mrs Martin and her Fred; and a feeling of profound sadness crept over him as he reflected how many chances there were against their ever again meeting in this world. Naturally these thoughts turned his mind to his own case. His sinful haste in quitting home, and the agony of his mother on finding that he was really gone, were more than ever impressed on him, but again the fatal idea that what was done could not be undone, coupled with pride and false shame, kept him firm to his purpose. That evening, in barracks, Miles was told by his company sergeant to hold himself in readiness to appear before the doctor next morning for inspection as to his physical fitness for active service in Egypt.