"Well, yes. But that was in order to go and fight—at once. You’re not ready for that yet. You won’t be eighteen till December. They wouldn’t take you anyhow, unless you concealed your age, which, of course, you wouldn’t do—couldn’t do, either, because you’re known. Besides, your grandmother, who is your legal guardian, could stop you. Why hurry things? You’ll be at Sandhurst in a few months’ time. Then if there’s any way to hurry things up you can find it out for yourself. I don’t want to act against your grandmother in this, Harry. I don’t think it’s fair to her." "Well, perhaps it wouldn’t be quite fair to you to ask you to do it," said Harry, with his engaging smile; "at least, not if nothing could come out of it. I suppose you’re quite sure that they wouldn’t take me till I was eighteen." "Oh, yes. The proclamations say so. You can see it for yourself." "Oh, well, then," said the boy, rising from his seat, "I suppose there’s nothing to be done just yet. I only wanted to be quite sure that I wasn’t leaving anything undone that I could do. I don’t think Granny takes quite the same view, you know. Anyhow, there’s nothing to bother her or mother for some months to come. I think mother will be waiting for me." He passed Wilbraham, still sitting at the table, and put his hand on his shoulder. "I shall see her to-morrow," he said, in a low voice. He laughed a boyish laugh of sheer happiness and ran out of the hall. *CHAPTER XVII* *THE END OF THE SUMMER* It was a golden day in September, which is perhaps the most beautiful of all English months, though touched with a gentle melancholy that may be either soothing or saddening, according to circumstances. Regarded as the time for taking up a new spell of work or duty after the relaxation of summer holiday, it is a delightful month, especially when the surroundings in which the work is to be done are such as existed at Royd. The Grant family had returned from the seaside and the Vicar-novelist was positively revelling in his enjoyment of home, and declaring that the best day of a holiday was its last. He had acquired a splendid idea for a novel which should excel all previous novels of his by many degrees, and put into the shade a large number of novels by other writers who had hitherto enjoyed a success in advance of his own. He had sat down to write the first chapter on the morning after their arrival at the Vicarage, and felt to the full the restful charm of his clean, comfortable room, with all his books and conveniences around him, and the garden outside in the full coloured glow of its autumn profusion.