"Dear, to be sure! Hark to the child," said granny, while the two men laughed uproariously. "The little maid's sharp, I can tell 'ee," announced Dick; "she do know the difference between soldier and civilian a'ready. Never see'd no soldier but I afore, and now, when another do come, says she to herself, 'This must be another daddy.' Ho! ho!" "She've a-got more sense nor many a wolder maid," returned Private Caines gloomily; "she do know what's what--I d' 'low she wouldn't ha' gone a-takin' up wi' a (qualified) civilian when you weren't to the fore. She be a bonny little maid, too," he added reflectively, eyeing the chubby pink and white face. "Yes, you've a-got good taste, as you did tell I out yonder." "Come, don't 'ee spoil the tale," cried the Corporal, laughing; "begin at the right end. My mother here do want to hear about my sweetheart." "I don't want to hear no sich thing," retorted the old woman, querulously, but anxiously, too. "I do know 'ee better nor to think you'd have any sich nonsensical notions; you as be a widow man, and have a-buried sich a lovin' wife, what have a-left 'ee the darlingest little maid to keep. Us do want no step-mothers; us do want all the love, the wold mother and the little maid." Dick's face twitched, and his eyes clouded, but before he could answer, Private Billy Caines, who was not endowed with remarkably acute perceptions, began his narrative in a loud and merry voice. "Him and me was knocked over the same day--I shouldn't wonder but what it was the same shell. I couldn't tell 'ee for sure about that, for I were hit all to flinders, and for a bit they thought I was done for. But when I did get a bit better, and did begin to look about, I'm danged if the first thing I did see weren't poor old Dick's long white face, lyin' there so solemn, wi' his girt hollow black eyes, a-starin' and a-starin' straight i' front of en. I did use to watch en, and he did always look the same--sorrowful and anxious, and one day I did call out to en, soft like, 'What be thinkin' on, man? The us'al thing, I s'pose?' He did scraggle his head a bit round on the pillow and squint back at me. 'What mid that be?' says he. 'Why,' says I, 'the girl I left behind me!' 'Be that what you be a-thinkin' on?' says he. 'O' course,' says I; 'what else?' 'What else, indeed?' says he, and he did sigh same as if he had a bellows inside of en." "Did he actually say he was a-thinkin' about soom maid?" interrupted Mrs. Baverstock wrathfully.