This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. Had her mother been happy? That her children could never know. Desmond's countenance, however, soon cleared. It was impossible for him to frown for long on any subject. He was very sorry for 'old Pam.' His father's opinions and behaviour were too queer for words. He would be jolly worried if he had to stay long at home, like Pamela. But then he wasn't going to be long at home. He was going off to his artillery camp in two days, and the thought filled him with a restless and impatient delight. At the same time he was more tolerant of his father than Pamela was, though he could not have told why. 'Desmond, give me your foot,' Pamela presently commanded. The boy bared his foot obediently, and held it out while Pamela tried on a sock she had just finished knitting on a new pattern. 'I'm not very good at it,' sighed Pamela. 'Are you sure you can wear them, Dezzy?' 'Wear them? Ripping!' said the boy, surveying his foot at different angles. 'But you know, Pam, I can't take half the things you want me to take. What on earth did you get me a Gieve waistcoat for?' 'How do you know you won't be going to Mesopotamia?' 'Well, I don't know; but I don't somehow think it's very likely. They get their drafts from Egypt, and there's lots of artillery there.' Pamela remembered with annoyance that Miss Bremerton had gently hinted the same thing when the Gieve waistcoat had been unpacked in her presence. It was true, of course, that she had a brother fighting under General Maude. That, no doubt, did give her a modest right to speak. 'How old do you think she is?' said Desmond, nodding in the direction of the library. 'Well, she's over thirty.' 'She doesn't look it.' 'Oh, Desmond, she does!' 'Let's call her the New Broom--Broomie for short,' said Desmond. 'Look here, Pam, I wish you'd try and like her. I shall have a dreadful hump when I get to camp if I think she's going to make you miserable.' 'Oh, I'll try,' said the girl with dreary resignation. 'You know I'm not to see Beryl again?' She looked up. Her brother laughed. 'Don't I see you keeping to that! If Aubrey's any good he'll marry her straight away. And then how can father boycott her after that?' 'He will,' said Pamela decisively. 'And if father thinks I'm going to give up Arthur, he's jolly well mistaken,' said the boy with energy. 'Arthur's the best fellow I know, and he's been just ripping to me.' The young face softened and glowed as though under the stress of some guarded memory. Pamela, looking up, caught her brother's expression and glowed too. 'Beryl says he isn't a bit strong yet. But he's moving heaven and earth to get back to the front.' 'Well, if they don't give him enough to do he'll be pretty sick. He's no good at loafing.'