"Oh, an awfully good chap, and so humorous! I've never once seen him down. I've got his photo somewhere, I believe. I took a snapshot of him once."
"Oh, do show it to us!"
Leonard searched through his pockets, and after turning out an assortment of letters and papers produced a small photograph for inspection. The girls bumped their heads together in their eagerness to look at it. It had been taken in camp, and represented the young soldier in the act of raising a can of coffee to his lips. There was a pleased smile on the whimsical face, and a twinkle in the dark eyes. Marjorie caught her breath.
"Why, why!" she gasped. "It's surely Private Preston!"
"That's his name right enough. We call him Winkles, though. He's a lieutenant now, by the way—got his commission just lately."
"But—I thought he was killed?"
"Not a bit of it! I heard from him yesterday."
"He was in the Roll of Honour," urged Marjorie, still unable to believe.
"No, he wasn't. That was his brother Henry, who was in the same regiment—a nice chap, though nothing to Winkles."
Marjorie sat in a state of almost dazed incomprehension. A black cloud seemed suddenly to have rolled away from her, and she had not yet had time to readjust herself. As in a dream she listened to Dona's explanation.