"I'm certain of it. You'll spoil everything if you go blabbing!"
"Well, I won't, if you'd rather not; but I'm just longing to ask Winifrede what she thinks about it all," said Marjorie regretfully.
CHAPTER XXIII
On Leave
The next great event on the horizon of Marjorie and Dona was that Larry was transferred from the London Military Hospital to the Whitecliffe Red Cross Hospital. Mrs. Anderson came to The Tamarisks for a night as soon as he was installed, and paid a flying visit to Brackenfield to see her daughters, and beg an exeat, that she might take them to spend a brief half-hour with their brother. It was neither a Wednesday nor a Saturday, but in the circumstances Mrs. Morrison granted permission; and the girls, rejoicing at missing a music lesson and a chemistry lecture, were borne away by their mother for the afternoon. As they expected, they found Larry established as prime pet of the hospital. He was an attractive lad, already a favourite with his cousin Elaine, and his handsome boyish face and prepossessing manners soon won him the good graces of the other V.A.D.'s.
"I'm having the time of my life!" he assured his family. "I shan't want to go away. They certainly know how to take care of a fellow here. After the trenches it's just heaven!"
"It was hard luck to be wounded when you'd only been at the front three weeks!" sympathized Dona.
"Never mind! I got on the Roll of Honour before my nineteenth birthday!" triumphed Larry. "And I'll go back and have another shot before I'm much older."
"I wish the military age were twenty-one!" sighed Mrs. Anderson.