There was but one thought in his evacuated brain, to make the fair Sylvia his own.

His opportunity came after dinner that night when the rest of the party had gone out to look at some condemned pheasants which were to be shot at dawn. She was at the piano playing that deservedly popular song, "I've chipped my chip for England," by Nathaniel Dayer, when he suddenly leant over her. "Miss Taunton—Sylvia," he ejaculated, "you will be surprised at this suddenness, I know, but I cannot keep it in any longer; I love you enormously. Is there any chance for me?"

She had just reached that passage in Nathaniel's song where a triumphant ascending scale in G rings out. She faltered and played D-flat instead of D-natural, the first dissonance that night—would it had been the last! Quickly she turned on the music-stool and on him, and spoke with averted head.

"Mr. Armstrong, I will own frankly that I like you more than a little. Though we only met three days ago I am more drawn to you than I have ever been to any other man."

"Aha," he cried exultingly.

"But," she said, "I must say something about myself. While I am a War-worker, I have never told you yet what I am doing. I am a clerk in Marr's Bank, in Cheapside."

"There is nothing dishonourable in that," he almost shouted.

"There is not," she answered, haughtily drawing herself up.

"I keep my account there," he said.

"I know," she replied; "I am in the Pass-book department."

He stood quite still, but the lapels of his dinner-jacket shook slightly.

"My duties," she went on quietly, "are to report each evening to my chief, Mr. Hassets, on our clients' balances. Yours has never been higher than £24 7s. 9d. during the eighteen months that I have been there. I am very sorry, but I cannot marry you."

He looked straight into her inscrutable eyes and the right repartee froze on his lips.

On the morrow he left at dawn, just as the birds were beginning to drop; and before the day was over he had transferred his account from Marr's Bank to Parr's.

"CHAPLAIN —— ASKS GUIDANCE FOR THE AUTHORITIES.

Prays that recent events may be prevented."—Baltimore News.

Surely this is asking too much.

"British troops in Macedonia are now in possession of Deltawah and Sindiyah, some thirty-five miles north of Bagdad, and of Falluyah on the Euphrates, thirty-six miles west of Bagdad."—Sunday Paper.

We know on Fluellen's authority that Macedon and Monmouth are very much alike; and so, it seems, is Mesopotamia.

BACK TO THE LAND.

"IT."

PHASE I.

The doctor says, perfectly cheerfully and as though it were really not a matter of vital importance, that there is no doubt that I have got IT. He remarks that IT is all over the place, and that he has a couple of hundred other cases at the present time.

I resent his attitude as far as I have strength to do anything at all. I did not give permission for him to be called in just to have my sufferings brushed aside like this. He only stays about three minutes altogether, during which time he relates two funny stories (at least I suppose they are funny, because my nurse laughs; I can't see any point in them myself), and makes several futile remarks about the War. As though the War were a matter of importance by comparison! Then he goes, talking breezily all the way down the stairs.

Well, I think darkly, they will be sorry presently. I have no intention or expectation of getting better, and when they see me a fair young corpse then they'll know.

Already I loathe the Two Hundred. Not that I believe for a minute the story of my own disease being the same as their miserable little complaints. In recurring periods of conscious thought I go through the list of things I know for a fact I have got—rheumatic fever, sciatica, lumbago, toothache, neuritis, bronchitis, laryngitis, tonsilitis, neuralgia, gastritis, catarrh of several kinds, heart disease and inflammation (or possibly congestion) of the lungs. I shall think of some more presently, if my nurse will let me alone and not keep on worrying me with her "Just drink this." Bother the woman! Why doesn't she get off the earth? What's the use of my swallowing that man's filthy medicine when he doesn't know what's the matter with me?

I hate everybody and everything, especially the eider-down quilt, which rises in slow billows in front of my eyes and threatens to engulf me. When in a paroxysm of fury I suddenly cast it on the floor, it lies there still billowing, and seems to leer at me. There is something fat and sinister and German about that eiderdown. I never noticed it before. Two Hundred German eider-downs!

The firelight flickers weirdly about the room and I try to count the shadows. But before I begin I know the answer—TWO HUNDRED.

I drift into a nightmare of Two Hundred elusive cabbages which I am endeavouring to plant in my new allotment, where a harsh fate forces me to dig and dig and DIG, and, as a natural consequence, also to ache and ache and ACHE.

PHASE II.

I can stand up with assistance from the bed-post and totter feebly to an arm-chair by the fire, where I sit in a dressing-gown and weep. What for? I couldn't say, except that it seems a fit and proper thing to do.

I am still of opinion that I am not long for this world, and my favourite occupation at present is counting up the number of wreaths that I might justifiably expect to have sent to my funeral. I don't tell my nurse, who would immediately try to "cheer me up" by talking to me or giving me a magazine to look at. And I would much rather count wreaths. The Smiths probably would not be able to afford one....

My thoughts are distracted by the sudden apparition of a little meal. I begin to take an interest in these little meals, which are of such frequent occurrence that I am reduced to tears again, this time at the thought of the extra expense I am causing. And all for nothing. Why don't they save the money for wreaths?

The doctor comes while I am