'You are not saying what you mean,' said Hetty somewhat severely. If you did not love any one, you could not but think of the horrid danger. Poor fellows,' she added, and poor Jack !'

It is a part of the game of their lives,' replied the other: 'the game is worth winning and worth risking. We poor wretched creatures can only sit idle and cackle feebly in company.'

Then Miss Hetty went on touching the notes softly, and the bird in one of the windows thrust its beak through the wooden bars and twittered feebly.

'Papa is fast asleep by this time,' she said with a smile at Minnie Heneage; and placing her finger on her lip, she crossed the room on tiptoe, and drew the silk handkerchief from off his face.

He was wide awake.

'Why, what is the use of my music, papa, if you do not go to sleep? It is a dreadful waste of time and trouble, and is not at all a good compliment to pay me.'

'I was thinking of something,' he answered, but I will try not to think of something or anything. Go on playing, my dear; that symphony's very pretty, though I ought to say wonderful, as it is the work of so great a composer.'

Hetty sat down to the piano again. She played on, and the music seemed to her a tender solace and comfort.

Her companion had left the piano, and was seated on a great fauteuil in a kind of half-sullen silence. Hetty played on and on, until at length she left off striking the keys, and sank into a painful reverie.

Under the windows there were the same noises as usual. They could hear the patter of the sabots and the noise of wheels, and now and again the chiming of the distant bells.

They were all three silent, and the clocks were running a race one against the other.

Suddenly in through the window came a dull groaning sound.

'It is thunder,' said Minnie Heneage; it has been hanging over us for some days, and will clear the air. It always makes me feel so heavy until it does.'

The Colonel had risen to his feet, and was listening with lowered brows.

'It is not thunder,' he said quietly.

It was the cannon of Marshal Ney, who, now that D'Erlon and Kellerman had formed up, was opening fire on Quatre Bras.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TO THE FRONT.

WHEN the words 'March at ease!' rang through the air Jack sheathed his sword. Something like a sigh of relief escaped his lips, and he marched on for some time in silence.

The heavy dewdrops were falling from the leaves of the trees overhead, and once, when he looked up at the sky, they came plashing in his face. They were not far in the forest before nothing was heard but the sound of their own footsteps. After a time the rhythmic beat of the feet seemed to grow depressingly monotonous, and it was deadened with the faint echoes of the road and the dense forest. The air was fresh and cold; but when they got to anything like a clearing, the warm scent of burning wood came from the smouldering fires of the charcoalburners.

Then they passed by a small hut, in front of which a peasant, clad in a long blouse and loose trousers, was smoking his pipe.

He took off his cap and waved it with a shout, and some of the men answered back again. But when this little incident had had its place, the dreariness of the forest seemed to weigh on them still more and more. Now and again they would disturb a whole colony of crows, which would rise out of the trees and fly away in front of them. Now and again a startled hare or rabbit would scuttle across the road in front of them. The air, cold as it was, seemed oppressive, and to dull the spirits of the bright est. The forest was like a prison, and was as gloomy as the entrance to a catacomb.

At length Jack lit a cigar, and, with it between his lips, began thinking on all and everything.

He had often enough heard men talk of going into action. They all seemed to take it as matter of course. But that was what people did with death-at least, when it happened to others. What a game it was that they were going to play, and what chances there were for all!

Then he thought of Hetty.

'If it were an every-day time,' he said to himself, 'she would just have arisen. No, she would not; it can't be as late as that, only I seem to have been up for hours and hours. I wonder if ever I shall see the dear little thing once more?' Then his thoughts went back to the old home in Sussex. He saw the distant line of the blue downs and the meadows, between which flowed the little river. He could hear the clanking of the watermill and the barking of the village dogs. His father, the early riser of the family, would be pacing the gravel walk and smelling his roses. Perhaps he would have his gun under his arm and be out in the fields; and as the picture of the old man rose so clearly before him, he breathed a silent blessing on it.

They have got old Smith's forge alight by this time, I am quite sure. How straight the smoke used to rise from it and float over the hollow! I should like to see old Smith once again; he was not a bad fellow.'

And then the village, with its small green with the pond in it, with the hissing and cackling of the geese, and the clucking of the old women's hens, came to view in his mind's eye. There was the wheelwright's cottage, with its cabbage garden in front; there were the great clumsy wheels resting. against the wall, and the wheelwright's daughter, in her cotton. gown, feeding the fowls from a wooden bowl. All this slowly passed before him like a lagging panorama. But whenever his thoughts carried him far away, they were brought back again instantly by the sound of the marching and the sight of the weedy-looking forest trees.

Beside him he saw one of the lads of his company, who had only recently come into the clutches of Sergeant Kite. He was a coarsefaced lad, with a shock of red hair and a greasy shining face. His eyes were small and his nose was thick, but yet it was not a badlooking face altogether. Jack often did rather unusual things, and now he spoke to the boy.

It's better here than being stifled up in that city; isn't it, Jarvis?'

'Yes, sir,' said the lad, 'it's very nice out here. I never see much of the country before I 'listed, and I like it.'

'You like it better than London ? -so do I, and always did;' and Jack smiled pleasantly. I suppose you are a regular town bird?"

'Yes, sir; I was in the Militia, and this coming on put thoughts of soldiering in me; and so here I am.' 'And we're going to fight the

French, as "The Bluebells of Scotland" says-only the Hieland laddies are on in front.'

Then once more they sank into silence. Then the sun grew warmer and warmer, and no longer the dew fell from the trees, and the stocks fretted the necks of the youngsters who had not smelt powder in the Peninsula, but had only handled the gloves in Whitechapel. And some of the feet which were not over-strong stum.bled on the rough stoneway. But the sergeant gave now and then an encouraging nod, and the lads plucked up their spirit. For though such deeds were done at Waterloo and Quatre Bras, many of the heroes were but young boys, who had barely the strength to carry Brown Bess on their shoulders.

Great, then, was the relief of all when they saw a break in the trees and the top of a quaint domecovered building. Briskly every foot stepped out, as the regiment found itself in a large village.

There was the cry of ' Halt!' and 'Stand at ease!'

Jack gave a yawn, stretched himself, and looked about him. It was a good-sized and very comfortable village. A church stood on a piece of rising ground, on which, to right and left of the building, were some great stacks of wood. He could see that the church had two or three roofs and a large classic porch, on the steps of which some children were seated, whose blue eyes were roving over them hither and thither with the greatest curiosity. There were two peasants, too, in blouses and breeches, walking beside a great wickerwork cart, drawn by a heavy Flanders

mare.

The estaminet beside him was a tolerably good one, and had a slanting roof with two little dormer windows in it. Beyond this was a row of flat-fronted houses.

Some people were standing in the doorways, and two or three girls were looking from the upper story down on to Tommy Atkins and his comrades, and laughing merrily. Jack crossed the road, and stood in the shade under a little lean-to of a cottage there. Then he felt thirsty, and strolled into one of the houses, where the good woman gave him a drink of milk. As he was holding the small basin in his hand, his cousin walked in. Harry Hedley looked very fagged and tired, and sat down wearily on one of the chairs. Jack handed him some of the milk without speaking. They were both silent for a few minutes, as they looked out of the open lattice-window at the men, to whom the good people were bringing food and drink, as they always did do when they found they were ready to pay for it. The red coats, the bluish-gray trousers, the big shakoes, the nightcaps of the peasants, the quaint headdresses of some of the women-all seemed to be mixed up together, and had a very curious effect.

'It is quite like at home, drinking this milk,' said Harry, after a time. I didn't get a very good sleep last night. I wish I had now. Perhaps we shall sleep soundly enough to-night.'

'There is no need to take too dismal a view of it,' said honest Jack; 'certainly we can die but once. But you don't want to be thinking about that now.'

'It will come upon us without much thinking,' answered the other; ' and whether it comes to me or not, it doesn't much matter now;' and he walked moodily across the room, and looked at a little picture of the Virgin which was hanging on the wall.

But, as he spoke, they heard a sound of clattering hoofs on the stones outside. There was a considerable noise and some faint

shouting now and then. All they saw was a large group of horsemen riding past. They walked out into the street.

'Who were they?' Jack asked of the lad in his company he had been speaking to early in the day. 'The Duke, sir.'

But the Duke and his staff had turned the corner where the road branched off to Genappe and Chaleur, and were lost to view directly.

To the village now a number of peasants had come in, and were staring hard at the new comers, some handling their muskets, and others patting their red coats. They were friendly enough, yet did not forget to charge for everything that the men had.

Some way into the village they could see the Colonel talking to a group of staff officers. One of these was pointing with his hat here and there. The Colonel rode back. The men stood to attention. The word was given, and once more they were on the march.

CHAPTER XXVII.

WAITING.

THE low thunder of the distant cannon had reached Brussels at last.

The five visitors seated in the cafés and the courtyards of the hotels, smoking their cigars and sipping their claret, were startled as with the writing on the wall.

'Why should we hear that-why should we be obliged to hear it?' They had come over to Brussels for a pleasure trip, and it should have been so arranged that no such unpleasantness should have occurred. Little enough they cared about patriotism and such trifles. They had bragged finely enough about anything for a change-even a sight of the French shakoes; but

now that this seemed likely to come to pass, they began to take a very different view of the business. In the D'Arenberg, the boldest among them-those who had meant to take a trip with the army itself— turned pale at that sound. It was as if the words at Balthazar's feast had been spoken instead of written, and spoken in such a fashion that they could not possibly be misunderstood. Visions of gigantic grenadiers de cheval making clutches at their watch-chains and seals; of gray-moustached veterans of the Guard digging them in the ribs with their muskets, and demanding small or large loans; the thought of their having to pass their days in a French prison, playing at cards and drinking bad brandy. War was a very romantic affair, but was much better when carried on some thousand miles or so away, instead of being fought right at your gates.

'The Duke,' one gentleman was saying, with a face alternately pale with anger and with fear, 'ought to have carried the war down south; he ought to have let them cross the Sambre. He has been long enough here to have done anything he liked.' And then the luckless creature thought of dear Mincing-lane, and his paradise of ledgers and clerks and safes. Why did he ever leave it to come out on such a fool's errand as this?

But already all those who could lay their hands on anything in the way of a conveyance had taken the road to Antwerp. Some terrorstricken heroes had proposed to walk together, and have their luggage carted there. But they were told that the roads had a number of rough customers on them, who would not be in the least particular about taking a few trifles in the way of portmanteaus and other luggage.

So these gentlemen walked restlessly to and fro, to and fro. They

bit their nails, and chewed the ends of their cigars, and took snuff copiously, and drank, and wandered about and shouted for mine host, who kept discreetly out of the way. And outside, in the city, were women with pale faces, who tried, and tried in vain, to look composed. Sometimes they would go into the shops, and vaguely purchase large stocks of utterly useless trifles. Then they would walk back together to their hotels or lodgings, and sit down and take up a book, and put it down again, and open their windows and look out; and, distinction all forgotten, they would condescend to ask their maids to sit with them. In the streets, too, the dogs drawing the little carts would stop and prick up their ears and listen attentively; and in the narrow courts the pigeons would fly out of their homes, the holes in the walls, and circle uneasily in the air, and then come down again and give a restless cooing. The workfolk, too, had become needlessly idle, and the estaminets were all full of drinkers, who nodded their heads and winked mysteriously, and lifted their eyebrows and shrugged their shoulders, at these poor unhappy English, and the fate which was in store for them.

And all the time, the cause of this, the low growling thunder of the cannon, came over the Bois de Coimbre, and penetrated every corner of the city.

But Hetty Dawson, hardly able to sit up any longer, was lying on the couch in the little salon. Her handkerchief was over her eyes; she had been crying, but was now fairly worn out.

Miss Minnie Heneage was seated by the window, and the Colonel had a book in his hand; but it was very evident that his thoughts were far away indeed from that romance of Madame de Staël-Holstein.

On the face cf the Farson's

daughter there was a deadly pallor, and her lips moved uneasily, and she seemed, by a gasping breath, every few minutes to be trying to swallow down the fear which was conquering her.

It was during one of these gasps that the Colonel looked up.

This is dreadful!' she said, in answer to his look.

The Colonel nodded his head, and turned his eyes towards Hetty, as if to say that he did not want the subject to be referred to.

Hang me,' he thought to himself, I do believe the girl's a coward, and that little Het has twice her pluck! Het isn't thinking of her own safety, but of Jack's. That girl has not a thought but about herself. I don't quite like her for it.'

Then the old gentleman gazed at her furtively over the top of his book. There was a kind of peevishness mingled with her fear, and she tapped with her shoe upon the floor.

He looked at the pale face and the shaking mouth.

'I am glad my girl is not like that,' he murmured to himself.

But his train of thoughts were broken by the sound of footsteps, and Parson Heneage in a few seconds was in the room.

The Colonel looked at him and held out his hand. The worthy cleric was perfectly livid with alarm and fright, and his hand shook as if he had been a confirmed drunkard instead of a highly respectable English gentleman.

Perhaps it would be as well to leave consolation alone in cases like this,' said Mr. Dawson, thinking that Mr. Heneage was going to indulge in a long homily,' which he was sometimes given to do on great and important occasions. But no such idea was in the parson's mind.

'Minnie, my dear child,' he