"He'd take care of you all the better for a few years' soldiering. However, duty's duty, and if the lad sees his post is here, and he can find work to occupy him, let him stay. Why isn't the second lad at Sandhurst?" "Sandhurst means money, General." "Pooh!" he said very fiercely, "what is money?" "A commodity which we Brandons lack very much." He looked at me sharply, and muttered to himself that something must be done; the fine lads couldn't be allowed to loaf the best part of their lives away; but as he didn't speak to me, I took no notice of what he said, and the matter dropped. A day or two later, when the General was having one of his field-days with the boys and the twins, I heard them all come in from the lawn, and tramp upstairs to the General's private domain. I did not hear them come back, and presently the tea was brought in and set on a table. "Ring the bell, Jane," said I. Jane rang the bell and departed, but no one came. The tea stood some minutes, and then I rang again, but with no result. "Ah!" said I to myself, "they are so absorbed in their discussion that they have not heard." And so I went in search of them. I found my way to them by the low hum of voices, and when I entered the room where they were I came upon the whole party bending over a table on which there was an open map. The General was tracing for them the path of a retreat, and so absorbed were they that they did not hear me come in. I looked about me with interest. The room was bare even to nakedness. A little iron bed stood in one corner. There was a high wooden desk, a few penitential chairs, a bath with a can of cold water standing in it, a shelf with a few shabby books obviously of a devotional kind. On the wall, between some soberly-coloured texts, were one or two prints of famous soldiers; and above the mantel-piece, with its row of pipes, its pistol-cases, and a long sword in its scabbard, there hung a portrait in pastel of a young man, the one bit of colour in the room. I gazed at it fascinated. It recalled to my memory the young man who had been so kind that day long ago at Annagassan Races. Why, it was he surely--the expression, the eyes, the mouth, at once grave and humorous. I had not forgotten him all those years, and I had no doubt about him now. How strange to find his picture here in General MacNeill's room! "Hullo!" said Hugh, suddenly espying me. "Here's Hilda. You'll have to do it all over again for her, General." "Perhaps you don't know," said I, "that the tea's been standing a quarter of an hour, and the bell has rung twice. It's not what I call discipline, General." "No more it isn't," said the General gaily. "I've been training the young recruits badly, but we were fighting, Miss Hilda, and in war-time we take a snack when we can. Run away, youngsters, run away, or the tea won't bear drinking."