"Hallo, Kate!" he said. "I am glad you are home. I have just requested Jameson to bring up tea. Why, what a lot of money you have lying loose about the place!"
"Only a hundred pounds, dad. I got it from the bank this morning."
"A very careless way to keep it," said Mr. Hunt—"very careless indeed! Money is hard to win and easy to lose. You are never aware of that fact. I wish you were not quite so careless."
"I have been made painfully aware of that fact to-day," thought Katherine, but she did not speak her thoughts aloud. She sat down and gazed straight before her. "The money is right enough; don't fret, dad." Then she added, after a pause: "What is the news from the Transvaal?"
"Have you not heard? We are sending out troops, doubtless as a precautionary measure, immediately."
"Do you happen to know who are going?"
Hunt mentioned two or three regiments.
"Is the North Essex Light Infantry going?" asked the girl suddenly.
"The North Essex Light Infantry!" repeated Hunt, in a tone of surprise. "Why, yes; a contingent of that regiment is ordered south. But why? Do you know any one belonging to it?"
"One man. I shall be sorry if he gets killed," she said, with apparent carelessness.