"It's in the family. Meg's taste is equally good"--with a meaning glance at him, but he was looking thoughtfully into his teacup. "And you really think we shall be dragged into war, Charlie?" "Mr. Harben seemed to think it certain." "I don't think I like Mr. Harben very much. I caught sight of his face while you were all talking in the corner, and I thought he must have heard some good news." "He was probably thinking at the moment only of his own particular aspect of the matter. War means business for contractors, you know." "Sir George didn't look that way." "He hasn't very much to do with the firm now, I believe. Besides, one would expect him to take wider views than Harben. He is a bigger man in every way." Then Mrs. Jex came in with the letters, and Gracie wondered merrily what joke the boys were up to. But Eager, who had not failed to notice their unconcealed enthralment the night before, pursed his lips for a moment as though he doubted if the contents of those letters would prove altogether humorous. "I thought they'd have been round, but I expect they've been in bed all day." And she ripped open Jim's letter, which happened to be uppermost, with an anticipatory smile. Eager saw the smile fade, as the sunshine fails off the side of a hill on an April day, and give place to a look of perplexity and a slight knitting of the placid brow. She picked up Jack's letter, and tore it open, and read it quickly. Then, with a catch in her breath and a startled look in her eyes, she jerked: "Charlie--what do they mean? Are they in fun----" "Shall I read them, dear?" She threw the letters over to him, and sat, with parted lips and wondering--and rather scared--face, looking into the fire, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "This is not fun, Grace dear," her brother said gravely at last. It had taken him a terrible long time to read those very short letters, but he read so much more in them than was actually written. "It is sober earnest, and a very grave matter." "But I don't want---- Oh!--I wish they hadn't"--with passionate fervour. "Why can't they let things go on as they are? We have been so happy----" "Yes. . . . But time works its changes. They are no longer boys----" A wriggle of dissent from Grace. "----Although they may seem so to us. And you are no longer a little girl----" "Oh! I feel like a speck of dust, Charlie; and I don't, don't, don't want----" "I know, dear; but it is too late. You may feel a little girl to-day. Last night you were an exquisitely beautiful woman--and this is the result." Grace put her hands up to her face and began to cry softly. For there, in the dancing flames, she had seen in a flash what it all must mean--severances, heart-aches, trouble generally. And they had all been so happy. Eager wisely let her have her cry out. When, at last, she mopped up her eyes, and sat looking pensively into the fire again, he said quietly: