"Are there only just you and your mother?"
"That's all."
"Have you no father?"
"He's dead. He was killed in the Boer War."
"Was he a soldier, then?"
"Yes; he was a captain in the Fifth Dragoon Guards."
"My father is dead too. Have you any brothers and sisters?"
"No. I never had any."
"Neither have I. I only wish I had. It's so lonely without, isn't it?"
"It is, rather; but I'm a great deal with mother."