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T HE SUN SHONE FROM A CLOUDLESS BLUE sky as two open barouches made their way along the Rue de la Pépinière, out through the Namur Gate at the south end of Brussels, and on their way to the Forest of Soignes. It was a perfect day for a picnic.
    Lady Madeline Raine rode in the first carriage with her friends Miss Frances Summers and Lady Anne Drummond. Ellen and Jennifer Simpson rode in the other, the picnic hamper on the seat opposite them. Colonel Huxtable, Lieutenant Penworth, Lord Eden, Captain Norton, and Sir Harding Whitworth rode beside the carriages.
    Madeline twirled a yellow parasol about her head and felt determinedly happy. It was possible to feel so if one concentrated only on the warm sunshine and the beauty of the forest that was approaching, and if one looked only at the splendor of the uniforms of four of their escorts and forgot about the significance of those uniforms.
    â€œI have never been out to the forest before,” Lady Anne said, “though I have heard that it is lovely. I did not expect the trees to be quite so large.”
    The three ladies gazed about them at the beechwood trees, their trunks tall and massive, smooth and silvery.
    â€œI always feel as if I should whisper when I am here,” Madeline said. “It is almost like being in a cathedral.”
    â€œI believe this is where we should turn off the main road,” Colonel Huxtable said, turning back to see Lord Eden’s affirming nod, “before we reach the village of Waterloo.”
    â€œIs this the way the French will try to come?” Lady Anne asked of no one in particular as horses and carriages turned from the wide Charleroi Chaussée and into the forest with its widely spaced trees.
    â€œOh, no,” Miss Summers said quite firmly. “Ferdie says that they will come from the west to try to cut off our supply lines with Ostend. That will be the best tactical move, he says.”
    â€œI think that for the rest of today we should declare military talk strictly forbidden,” Madeline said gaily.
    â€œI could not agree more,” Colonel Huxtable said, “for everyone knows that the French are not going to come from any direction at all. Trust his grace and the allied armies to ensure that, ladies.”
    â€œI would regret not having had one chance to take a good poke at old Boney’s men, though,” Lieutenant Penworth added.
    â€œYes, a captured Eagle would be a splendid souvenir to keep in one’s ancestral castle for the rest of one’s life, would it not?” Sir Harding said in his somewhat bored voice. “Your youthful eagerness is quite exhausting, Penworth, and is boring the ladies.” He bowed from the saddle to Madeline with exaggerated courtesy.
    Madeline twirled her parasol and bit back the retort that it was all very well to affect world-weariness when one was a civilian and ran no danger of ever seeing an Eagle waving menacingly in one’s face from the clasp of a French hand. She smiled at a flushing Lieutenant Penworth.
    The colonel handed her from the barouche when a suitable picnic site had been chosen, and asked her to take a walk with him, since it was too early to eat. Lady Anne and Frances were already settling themselves on blankets that Captain Norton had spread on the ground. Sir Harding joined them there. Lieutenant Penworth was bowing over Jennifer Simpson’s hand.
    It was perhaps not quite proper to agree to walk alone in the forest with a gentleman, Madeline thought as she took the colonel’s arm and allowed him to lead her away. But she was past the age of chaperones and all that faradiddle. It felt good sometimes to be five-and-twenty and as free as a bird.
    â€œNow I know why you wore a dress of such a bright yellow,” the colonel said. “It was so that we would have sunshine even in the middle of the forest.”
    â€œAh, my secret is exposed,” she said gaily, twirling the parasol even as she