The Regiment was wonderfully well run for the men on its social side, for the Colonel was a bachelor, and much was trusted to Mrs. Lewknor. She was at Ernie's bedside the day after he had his first attack of fever. The little lady, so delicate, yet so strong, stood above the lad whose mother she might have been with a curious thrill. He was so like his father, yet so unlike; and he was not only sick of fever, but dreadfully homesick too. Mrs. Lewknor knew all about that, and the cure for it. "Tell me about your people, Caspar," she said, after the ice had been broken. The lad unloosed the flood-gates with immense relief. He talked of Beachbourne, of Rectory Walk with the virginia-creeper on the wall and the fig-tree at the back; of his mother, of Mr. Pigott, even of Alf, and all the time of dad and the Downs. On rising to go, Mrs. Lewknor said that when she came next day she would read to him. "What shall I read?" she asked. "Would you read me Matthew Arnold's _Scholar-Gypsy_?" said the boy. Mrs. Lewknor looked down at the lad with brilliant eyes. "Is that your father's favourite?" she asked. "One of them, 'm. Wordsworth's the one." There was only one man in the Regiment who possessed a Matthew Arnold, but that man happily was Mrs. Lewknor's husband. Next day, as the little lady read the familiar lines, Ernie lay with eyes shut, the tears pouring down his face. "Takes me right back," he said at last as she finished. "I'm not here at all. I'm laying just above the Rabbit-walk over Beech-hangar, with the gorse-pods snapping in the sun, and the beech-leaves stirring beneath me, and old dad with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind his head reciting." That afternoon Mrs. Lewknor told Mr. Royal, who had dropped in to tea, that she had been reading Matthew Arnold to a man in his company. Mr. Royal looked blank. He had cold, speedwell blue eyes, that seemed all the brighter for his curly dark hair, a fine skin, rather pale, and an always growing reputation for hard efficiency. "Matthew Arnold!" he said. "And who might Mr. Matthew Arnold be?" He said it a thought aggressively. It was clear that not only had he never heard of Matthew Arnold, but that he would have considered it bad form to have done so. "I believe he was a poet who seldom went to church," said the Major in the chi-chi voice which he could imitate to the life. "Indeed," said Mr. Royal. "A poet!--Ah, I'm too busy for that sort of thing myself." He said it with a crushing air of finality. When he had gone, Mrs. Lewknor looked at her husband with deprecatory eyes. "My Jock," she said with a little sigh, "tell me!--Is it the system?--is it the man?--What is it?" The Major sat upright on a little hard chair. His eyes twinkled maliciously in his somewhat bony head. He looked like a gaunt satyr.