DEAR MARY,—­You gave me a capital time.  There’s a slight difference between Dockington and the trenches.  I’m not as a rule a great performer with clergymen, but I liked your Dean.  By the way, when I dashed off your man put somebody else’s umbrella in with me, instead of my own, which is a natty specimen.  The one I’ve got is an old gamp with a stout indiarubber ring to it.  I haven’t time to send it back.  Every moment is taken up, as I cross to France to-night.  Besides, how can you pack such a thing as an umbrella?  It’s much too long.  Keep mine till we meet again.  Best love to Harry and the kids.

  Ever yours,
  TOM.

No.  IV.

From Arthur Vivian to Mrs. Morton.

DEAR MRS. MORTON,—­I wired you this morning asking you to do nothing about my umbrella.  The fact is I have found it at my rooms, and I am forced to the conclusion that I never took it with me to Dockington at all.  I am awfully sorry to have given you all this trouble.  It shall be a lesson to me never to take my umbrella anywhere, or rather never to think I’ve taken it, when, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.

  Yours always sincerely,
  ARTHUR VIVIAN.

No.  V.

Telegram from Mrs. Morton to Arthur Vivian.

Too late.  Sent off somebody’s umbrella to you yesterday. 
Please return it to me.

No.  VI.

From Mrs. Morton to her Sister, Lady Compton.

...  We had a few friends at Dockington last week, not a real party, but just a few old shoes—­Tom, Arthur Vivian and the Dean of Marchester and Mrs. Dean.  Since they went away I’ve had the most awful time with their umbrellas.  They all took away with them the wrong ones, and then wrote to me to send them their right ones.  Arthur Vivian never brought one, and whose he took away I can’t say.  In fact I’ve been exposed to an avalanche of returning umbrellas, and Parkins has spent all his time in doing up the absurd things and posting them.  He has just celebrated his seventieth birthday, and these umbrellas have ruined what’s left of his temper.  Umbrellas still keep pouring in, and nobody ever seems by any chance to get the right one.  It’s the most discouraging thing I’ve ever been involved in.  As far as I can make out the Dean’s umbrella is now in the trenches with Tom.  If ever I have a party at Dockington again I shall write, “No umbrellas by request,” on the invitations.

* * * * *

THE INN O’ THE SWORD.

A SONG OF YOUTH AND WAR.

  Roving along the King’s highway
    I met wi’ a Romany black. 
  “Good day,” says I; says he, “Good day,
    And what may you have in your pack?”
  “Why, a shirt,” says I, “and a song or two
    To make the road go faster.” 
  He laughed:  “Ye’ll find or the day be through
    There’s more nor that, young master. 
      Oh, roving’s good and youth is sweet
        And love is its own reward;
      But there’s that shall stay your careless feet
        When ye come to the Sign o’ the Sword.”