"Oh, but you will be sure to like Uncle Phil. He is awfully jolly, and he is a soldier, too. He has a sword and a gun and has promised to teach me to shoot. I am going to be a soldier, too," cries out Mark, the second son. "And when is this terrible soldier coming?" Lady Vera inquires, with languid interest. "We do not know exactly, but very soon," they tell her. "He came about this time last year. Mamma had a letter from him this morning." "You have not told me his name yet," Lady Vera continues. "He is Captain Philip Lockhart, and his father, our own grandpapa, is General Lockhart," answers Hal, the heir, while little Dot claps her small hands gleefully, crying out: "Uncle Phil will bring us lots of bu'ful playt'ings from New York. He always does." But though "Uncle Phil" remains the favorite topic of the nursery for several days, Lady Clive quite forgets to tell her guest that she expects her brother. Lady Vera scarcely gives it a thought. In the expected arrival of Captain Lockhart she takes not the slightest interest. So it happened that when Vera runs into the nursery one evening--having promised the children a peep at her ball dress--she comes upon an unexpected tableau. A man on his knees, hammering at the lid of a big box, three hopefuls gathered around him, and chattering like magpies; the prim, white-aproned nurse vainly endeavoring to command silence. Before Vera can beat her instantly-attempted retreat, the little "Philistines are upon her." "Here she is," they cry. "This is Vera, of whom we have been telling you. Isn't she pretty, Uncle Phil?" "But she doesn't like Americans," adds one _enfant terrible_. "I am sorry for that," says Captain Lockhart, rising hastily, and giving Lady Vera a soldier's stately bow. "Cannot you persuade her that I am of some other nationality, my dears?" The ease and lightness of his words and manner carry off some of the embarrassment of the meeting. Lady Vera gives him a bow, and a slight little smile, sweet and transient. "I am sorry to have interrupted you," she says. "I am going now, directly." But her swift, upward glance has given her a glimpse of a tall, soldierly form, and a handsome-featured face, with dark-blue eyes, and dark-brown mustache, while short, curling locks of deepest brown cluster about a finely-shaped head--"every inch a soldier." Our hero, on his part, sees a vision of dazzling beauty--dark eyes, golden tresses, scarlet lips, a slim yet daintily-rounded figure in costly lace, with knots of purple, golden-hearted pansies. Around the slender, stately column of the white throat a necklace of pansies formed of dark, purple amethysts with diamond centers radiating fire--a birthday gift from her father. "Pray do not go," Captain Lockhart says, persuasively, with the winning tongue of a soldier. "The children have been eagerly expecting you. Do not damp their pleasure. Rather let me withdraw."