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Cecilia and Bob quite understood that every one could not
have the same things, for possibly these fortunate children had no
puppies or pony carts. Nurse had pointed out this, so that it was

perfectly clear.
It was when Cecilia was eight and Bob eleven, that their father married
again. To the children it meant nothing; to Aunt Margaret it was a
bomb. If Mark Rainham had happened to die, or go to the North Pole,
she would have borne the occurrence calmly; but that he should take a
step which might mean separating her from her beloved babies shook
her to her foundations. Even when she was assured that the new Mrs.
Rainham disliked children, and had not the slightest intention of adding
Bob and Cecilia to her household, Aunt Margaret remained uneasy.
The red-haired person, as she mentally labelled her, might change her
mind. Mark Rainham was wax in her hands, and would always do as he
was told. Aunt Margaret, goaded by fear, became heroic. She let the
beloved house at Twickenham while Mr. and Mrs. Rainham were still
on their honeymoon; packed up the children, her maids, nurse, the
parrot and most of the puppies; and kept all her plans a profound secret
until she was safely established in Paris.
To the average Londoner, Paris is very far off. There are, of course,
very many people who run across the Channel as easily as a Melbourne
man may week-end in Gippsland or Bendigo, but the suburban section
of London is not fond of voyaging across a strip of water with
unpleasant possibilities in the way of choppiness, to a strange country
where most of the inhabitants have the bad taste not to speak English.
Neither Mark Rainham nor his new wife had ever been in France, and
to them it seemed, as Aunt Margaret had shrewdly hoped it would,
almost as though the Twickenham household had gone to the North
Pole. A great relief fell upon them, since there could now be no
question of assuming duties when those duties were suddenly beyond
their reach. And Aunt Margaret's letter was convincing--such a good
offer, suddenly, for the Twickenham house; such excellent educational
opportunities for the children, in the shape of semi-English schools,
where Bob and Cecilia might mix with English children and retain their
nationality while acquiring Parisian French. If Mark Rainham felt any
inward resentment at the summary disposal of his son and daughter, he
did not show it; as of old, it was easier to let things slide. Aunt
Margaret was given a free hand, save that at fourteen Bob returned to

school in England; an arrangement that mattered little, since all his
holidays were spent at the new home at Fontainebleau--a house which,
even to the parrot, was highly reminiscent of Twickenham.
Bob and Cecilia found life extremely interesting. They were cheery,
happy-go-lucky youngsters, with an immense capacity for enjoyment;
and Aunt Margaret, while much too shrewd an old lady to spoil
children, delighted in giving them a good time. They found plenty of
friends in the little English community in Paris, as well as among their
French neighbours. Paris itself was full of fascination; then there were
wonderful excursions far afield-- holidays in Brussels, in the South of
France, even winter sporting in Switzerland. Aunt Margaret was
determined that her nurselings should miss nothing that she could give
them. The duty letters which she insisted on their writing, once a month,
to their father told of happenings that seemed strangely remote from the
humdrum life of London. "By Jove, the old lady gives those youngsters
a good time!" Mark Rainham would comment, tossing them across the
table to his wife. He did not guess at the dull rage that filled her as she
read them--the unreasoning jealousy that these children should have
opportunities so far beyond any that were likely to occur for her own,
who squabbled angrily over their breakfast while she read.
"She seems to have any amount of money to spend on gadding about,"
she would say unpleasantly.
"Oh, pots of money. Wish to goodness I had some of it," her husband
would answer. Money was always scarce in the Rainham household.
When the thunderbolt of war fell upon the world, Aunt Margaret, after
the first pangs of panic, stiffened her back, and declined to leave France.
England, she declared, was not much safer than anywhere else; and was
it likely that she and Cecilia would run away when Bob was coming
back? Bob, just eighteen, captain of his school training corps, stroke of
its racing boat, and a mighty man of valour at football, slid naturally
into khaki within a month of the outbreak of war, putting aside toys,
with all the glad company of boys of the Empire, until