She felt rather excited, a thought more restless than usual. England at war, and with Germany! Dear old Anna's Fatherland--the great country to which Rose had always been taught by her mother to look with peculiar affection, as well as respect and admiration. Rose and Mrs. Otway had hoped to go to Germany this very autumn. They had saved up their pennies--as Mrs. Otway would have put it--for a considerable time, in order that they might enjoy in comfort, and even in luxury, what promised to be a delightful tour. Rose could hardly realise even yet that their journey, so carefully planned out, so often discussed, would now have to be postponed. They were first to have gone to Weimar, where Mrs. Otway had spent such a happy year in her girlhood, and then to Munich, to Dresden, to Nuremberg--to all those dear old towns with whose names Rose had always been familiar. It seemed such a pity that now they would have to wait till after the war to go to Germany. After the war? Fortunately the people she had seen that day--and there had been a good deal of coming and going in the Close--all seemed to think that the war would be over very soon, and this pleasant view had been confirmed in a rather odd way. Rose's cousin, James Hayley, had rung her up on the telephone from London. She had been very much surprised, for a telephone message from London to Witanbury costs one-and-threepence, and James was careful about such things. When he did telephone, which was very seldom, he always waited to do so till the evening, when the fee was halved. But to-day James had rung up just before luncheon, and she had heard his voice almost as though he were standing by her side. "Who's there? Oh, it's you, is it, Rose? I just wanted to say that I shall probably be down Saturday night. I shan't be able to be away more than one night, worse luck. I suppose you've heard what's happened?" And then, as she had laughed--she had really not been able to help it (how very odd James was! He evidently thought Witanbury _quite_ out of the world), he had gone on, "It's a great bore, for it upsets everything horribly. The one good point about it is that it won't last long." "How long?" she had called out. And he had answered rather quickly, "You needn't speak so loud. I hear you perfectly. How long? Oh, I think it'll be over by October--may be a little before, but I should say October." "Mother thinks there'll be a sort of Trafalgar!"