"Iphigenia," said I.

"Was that the chap?" he said cheerily. "And now I've got you, come along
to the house. I've more to tell you than there is in all your silly old
Virgil, and it's alive, man, alive, alive. That's why it suits me. Come
along, Noll. Lord Brocton's supping and staying with dad, so's Sneyd, and
a lot more, and you'll hear all the news. Brocton's a beast, and I'm glad
I'm an officer, if it's only a cornet in his rotten dragoons. There'll be
one beast less in the world, I'm thinking, before long."

"What's he done to upset you?"

"I say, Noll," was his reply, "Kate did look sweet this afternoon. I was
glad to have her come and see me off to the wars. I only had a few
snatches of talk with her. Brocton was for ever finding me something to
do, rot him, but she did look sweet."

"All right, if she did. Never mind our Kate."

"Never mind your Kate, you barbarian, you one-eyed anthropathingamy! Oh,
Noll, old friend"--there was a catch in his voice as he dragged me into
the entry at the side of old Comfit's shop,--"she's your Kate now, but if
I come back, I want her to be my Kate. Don't breathe a word to her, Noll,
unless I never come back,--war has its risks, Noll, and I'm going to take
'em all,--but if I never come back, Noll, just tell Kate that I loved her."

A plump of townspeople yelled their way past the entry, and their torches
lit up his fresh, boyish face, all alight with the enthusiasms of war and
love. I clasped his hand, and we looked into each other's eyes.