Crouching close to the ground, behind the spreading roots of a giant oak, she raised her eyes. Before her lay a sea of smooth, soft mud nearly a mile wide. From the centre rose a solitary tree, from which all had been shot away but two bare branches like outstretched arms above the silence. Beyond, the hills rose again. There was something unearthly in the silence that seemed to brood above that sea of mud. The old priest told her of the living men, French and German, who had stood there day and night sunk in it up to their waists, screaming hour after hour, and waving their arms, sinking into it lower and lower, none able to help them: until at last only their screaming heads were left, and after a time these, too, would disappear: and the silence come again. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “A mutual friend, a Mr. Airlie, happened to be of the party, and he mentioned you.”!

“Yes,” answered Joan with a laugh. “They were pretty awful, some of them.” “No, it wasn’t,” answered the child. “Most of them were against it. And then there was Mama,” she added in a lower tone.

“If you’re going the whole hog, that’s something I can understand,” continued Flossie. “If not, you’d better pull up.” “I shall keep you to your promise,” he said quite gravely. “But where are your clothes?” was Mrs. Munday’s wonder.