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314 "I hope she'll steer for an English port. Good-bye, Lady Temple. Please live to be a hundred, that's all I ask of you."

"Good-bye, Sam," she said, blushing as she uttered the name he had urged her to use.

"You won't mind letting the children call me Uncle Sam, will you?" he said, a droll twist to his lips.

"How quaint!" she murmured.

"By Jove, Sammy," cried Eric warmly, "you've no idea how much better you look in Uncle Sam's uniform than you did in that stuffy frock coat this afternoon. Thank God, I can get into a uniform myself before long. You wouldn't understand, old chap, how good it feels to be in a British uniform."

"I'm afraid we've outgrown the British uniform," said the other drily. "It used to be rather common over here, you know."

"You don't know what all this means to me," said Temple seriously, his hand still clasping the American's. "I can hold up my head once more. I can fight for England. If she needs me, I can fight and die for her."

"You're a queer lot, you Britishers," drawled the American. "You want to fight and die for Old England. I have a singularly contrary ambition. I want to live and fight for America."

On the twenty-fourth of July, 1914, Lord Eric Temple and his bride came home to England.