Freda and Mrs. Vincent were as much absorbed as Jacky. I enjoyed it from an outsider's point of view, thinking how pretty it was--the old man with the child's heart bringing down his years to the level of the child's, and the two women with their pleasure and pride in it all. Presently, when they were quite old friends, for the friendship advanced by strides, the General's gifts were offered, and received with such shrieks of delight on Jacky's part that I was fain to clap my hands to my ears. When we left, Jacky played us out, marching backwards and forwards as he had seen the Highland pipers do in the streets, girt with sword and drum, and with a shrill fife at his lips, so that all Grove Avenue turned out to see. "A brave little chap!" the General pronounced him; and as we drove away he leaned from the hansom to look back at him. I thought he looked sad. He was thinking of his own soldier boy, I made sure. We had very gay times after that, and on several occasions the General took Jacky with us on our expeditions, bearing with the child so patiently and sweetly that I thought no mother could have done more. Not that Jacky didn't behave admirably. He had an immense admiration for "Old Soldier" as he called him; but then a lively boy of six is apt to prove a handful to a veteran with a gun-shot wound in the leg, and to a slightly-limping girl. We saw the Tower, and Hampton Court, and Windsor Castle, and the exhibition at Earl's Court, and the waxworks at Madame Tussaud's, and the Crystal Palace, all with Jacky to bear us company. Then the General and I saw one or two theatres, and one evening we dined with Mr. Linklater, and it was all very pleasant. But by the time our little holiday was up I was beginning to feel rather fagged, and to wish for Brandon and the library at Rose Hill. The very last morning we were in London came the publishing proposal from Messrs. Linklater, Lee, and Warner, with a stamped agreement for me to sign, which I did, feeling it the proudest moment of my life. The book was to come out before Christmas, and the proposal seemed to me a very handsome one, for I should have been overjoyed to get the book published without any suggestion of being paid for it. However, as the General said, that wouldn't be business, or at least business as an honourable firm like Linklater, Lee, and Warner understood it. I couldn't send back the agreement till I had taken it home for Aline and Esther and the boys to see, not even if it delayed the book, but the General said he thought there would be no fear of that. And now that I had to look forward to such happy things--the book, and the reviews, and all that--I longed for the time to pass till the published book should be an accomplished fact, and Hilda Brandon the name of a real author. CHAPTER XXIII. ESTHER.