"All's fish that comes to my net," replied Marjorie. "I think they're topping. No, I haven't got any of these. Thanks most awfully!"
"Don't mench! I'll try to beg some more. They've always heaps of papers and magazines at home, and Mother looks through them to find my pictures. No, you're not taking the 'heroes' away from me. I like them, but I don't want to collect them. My cube won't hold everything."
Marjorie sat down on her bed and turned over the new additions to her gallery. Three of them were the usual rather blurred newspaper prints, but, as Irene had said, two were on superior paper and very clear. One of these represented an officer with a moustache, the other was a private and clean shaven. Marjorie looked at them at first rather casually, then examined the latter with interest. She had seen that face before—the shape of the forehead, the twinkling dark eyes, and the humorous smile all seemed familiar. Instantly there rose to her memory a vision of the crowded railway carriage from Silverwood, of the run along the platform at Rosebury, and of the search for a taxi at Euston.
"I verily believe it's that nice Tommy who helped us!" she gasped to herself.
She looked at the inscription underneath, which set forth that Private H. T. Preston, West Yorks Regiment, had been awarded the V.C. for pluck in removing a "fired" Stokes shell.
"Why, that's the same regiment that Leonard is in! How frightfully interesting!" she thought. "So his name is Preston. I wonder what H. T. stands for—Harry, or Herbert, or Hugh, or Horace? He was most unmistakably a gentleman. He's going to have the best place among my heroes. If the picture were only smaller, I'd wear it in a locket. I wonder whether I could get it reduced if I joined the Photographic Society? I believe I'll give in my name on the chance. I must show it to Dona. She'll be thrilled."
The portrait of Private H. T. Preston was accordingly placed in a bijou frame, and hung up on the wall by the side of Marjorie's bed, in select company with Kitchener, Sir Douglas Haig, the Prince of Wales, and His Majesty the King. She looked at it every morning when she woke up. The whimsical brown eyes had quite a friendly expression.
"Where is he fighting now—and shall I ever meet him again?" she wondered. "I'm glad, at least, that I have his picture."
Marjorie lived for news of the war. She devoured the sheets of closely-written foreign paper sent home by Father, Bevis, and Leonard. She followed all the experiences they described, and tried to imagine them in their dug-outs, on the march, sleeping in rat-ridden barns, or cruising the Channel to sweep mines. When she awoke in the night and heard the rain falling, she would picture the wet trenches, and she often looked at the calm still moon, and thought how it shone alike on peaceful white cliffs and on stained battle-fields in Flanders. The aeroplanes that guarded the coast were a source of immense interest at Brackenfield. The girls would look up to see them whizzing overhead. There was a poster at the school depicting hostile aircraft, and they often gazed into the sky with an apprehension that one of the Hun pattern might make its sudden appearance. Annie Turner came back after the half-term holiday with the signatures of two Field-Marshals, a General, a Member of Parliament, three authors, an inventor, and a composer, and straightway set the fashion at St. Elgiva's for autographs. Nearly every girl in the house sent to the Stores at Whitecliffe for an album. At present, of course, specimens of caligraphy could only be had from mistresses and prefects, except by those lucky ones whose home people enclosed for them little slips of writing-paper with signatures, which could be pasted into the books.
Nobody took up the hobby more hotly than Marjorie. Her album was bound in blue morocco with gilt edges, and had coloured pages. The portion of it reserved for Brackenfield was soon filled by the Empress, mistresses, and prefects, who were long-suffering, though they must have grown very weary of signing their names in such a large number of books. Outside the school Marjorie so far had no luck. Her people did not seem to have any very noteworthy acquaintances, or, at any rate, would not trouble them for their autographs. She had thought it would be quite easy for Father to secure the signatures of generals and diplomats, but in his next letter he did not even refer to her request. Elaine secured for her the name of the Commandant of the Red Cross Hospital, and of a lady who sometimes wrote verses to be set to music, but these could not compete with the treasures some other girls had to show. Marjorie began to get a little downhearted about the new fad, and had serious thoughts of utilizing the album as a book of quotations.