‘I did it myself this morning,’ he said with pride.  ’I asked Uncle Jake for one of his best handkerchiefs.  He gave it to me last night, and I did it with a pen and ink before breakfast.  Can you read it?

Nancy looked at the straggling, uneven black letters that occupied the whole width across.

‘Love?’ she said curiously; ‘what does that mean?’

’It’s my banner of love that I’m going to carry for my Captain.  It means I’ve got to love even you.’

Nancy’s red lips pouted.  ‘I don’t want you to love me,’ she said.

‘I’ve got to do it.’

‘How are you going to do it?’

’I’m—­I’m not quite sure.  I’m never going to be angry with you.  And it’s very hard—­’

Here a deep-drawn sigh broke from him.  ’It’s very hard, but I’ve got to tell you I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you cross the bridge first, and I’m sorry I said I hated you in church.’

Nancy’s bright dark eyes peered inquisitively into the dreamy blue ones opposite her.

‘Are you really sorry?’ she said.

‘I think I am, at least part of me is; my enemy isn’t, but I am.’

This was beyond Nancy’s comprehension.

‘And you’ll never get angry, or set those horrid boys at me any more?’

‘No, I never will.’

Here a big rosy-cheeked apple was produced hastily out of the other pocket, and presented as a peace offering.

It was taken in silence; then as Nancy’s white little teeth met in it she said, with one of her beaming smiles, ‘And have I got to love you?’

‘I think you had better, because it will make it easier.’

‘Well, I will then, if you’ll do one thing.’

‘What is it?’

‘Give me that old button of yours.’

Teddy fairly gasped at this audacity.

‘Give you father’s button!’ he cried; ’never, never, never!  I’d rather be shot dead, or drownded dead, or hung dead, or chopped into little tiny bits!  I’ll never give it up!  It’s going to be on my coats and waistcoats till I’m a hundred, and then it will be buried in my grave with me.  Suppose I lost my button, do you know what I would do?’

Nancy gazed at the young orator with a little awe.

‘No,’ she said; ‘what?’

’I would drop down and die, my heart would burst and break, and if I couldn’t die very quick, I wouldn’t eat or drink nothing, but I’d go sadly to my grave and lay my head down, and the next morning you would find me stiff and cold with my glassy eyes staring up at the sky, like an old dog I read about.’

Teddy’s tone was so intensely tragic that Nancy was silent.  At last she said, ‘I’ll never love you proper till you give it to me.’

‘Will you like me a little instead?’

‘I might do that,’ she replied reluctantly.

‘And you won’t never say you don’t believe father’s story?’

‘I aren’t going to promise.’