"That there Master Roland 'ull have a bilious attack when he gets to that there School," Old Nurse declared, as she watched him go. "'E always feels it in the inside when his nerves is upset. It was just the same when 'e was learning to ride. He would keep on with that there dangerous 'orse, just because he wouldn't be beaten, and it was a wonder to me as he didn't get yellow jaundice. If he don't end up with a bilious attack to-day, he'll be lucky." There was a curious weight of gloom upon the house after his cab had driven away. The little sister moped in a corner and the still smaller brother sobbed silently behind the door of a room in which he was not expected to be. I knew that destiny was working, but I did not know how resolutely or how pitilessly. I did not know it even when, at the beginning of the second term, we were asked to give our permission for the boy to join the Officers' Training Corps. "Of course he must join it," we agreed. "It will do him all the good in the world, both in body and in character. He's not likely ever to have to practise what he will learn there; but every male child born in the British Empire ought to know how to be a soldier in case of need." So he took the first step; the step which has led after only a few years to my being here where I am to-night--waiting for him to come home on his second leave from the Front, where he has been fighting in the great war that darkens the whole world. His first holidays were such amazing days of joy! They were the winter holidays, too, and that made them better. The house in London had been in full swing, seeming to brim over with children and dogs and high spirits; and, within due limits of discipline, Little Yeogh Wough had been master of it all. He had had a fairly hard time during the term, though we did not know it until long afterwards. A secret society of slackers had tried to baulk his energy and blunt his ability by threatening him with ghastly penalties if he got to the top of his form. Five of them had met him one day on his way from his house to his class-room and had thrown him over a gate into a field. He had got up and dealt with them one after another, and after that the threatening letters with death heads and cross-bones drawn in blood had ceased to come and he had had peace. The bodily strength of him had developed enormously in the three months, and yet, directly he had come home, the tender, irresistibly fascinating side of him had sprung to the fore again. The gracious boyish dignity and charm of him filled the whole atmosphere on those afternoons when wind and rain and sleet made the London that he loved a bad place to be out in, and in the comfortable study he made his small toy gramophone give out a sweeter music than I have ever heard from the large and expensive instrument that now holds the place of honour in the home.