Margaret had, with difficulty, got him half laced he was almost ready to tell her to stop, that he couldn't stand any more and he'd have to give in. Fortunately, and probably because she realis- ed what was happening, Millie began to appear at that mom- ent, displacing his nineteen sev- enty eight male frame with her nineteen fourteen, slim twenty one year old female one. At once the pressure on his waist eased and Margaret, now a very youthful Susan, finished the lac- ing without difficulty. Over his corsetted waist went two white petticoats, the under one of taffeta, the top of silk, and then he sat, bolt upright, (very uncomfortable) at the dressing table for Susan to arrange his abundant fair hair. This was a very time-consuming operation employing dozens of hairpins but eventually it was done, his hair 'up' and framing his face beautifully. Make-up in the mod- ern sense was unknown and would have been rejected as 'fast' even if it had existed but an almost invisible dusting of powder was permissible. White satin shoes with little heels, and bows at the front, and then Ian stood for Susan to put him into the dress.

It was a fabulous gown white lace over shimmering white satin and from the uncomfort- ably high boned collar to his hips it fitted like a second skin over his strictly controlled and pre-shaped body. The fastening up the back was by a multitude of small round satin covered buttons and it took an under maid (who was helping Susan) all of five minutes to do them up, but the end result was an absolutely wrinkle - free sil- houette. From his hips down to the floor the material fell clear before stretching out behind him along the carpet in a train. Finally jewellery pearls and

matching earrings and then white gloves to button at the wrist, meeting the end of the long sleeves - only at the last

minute did he pause to look at his finger to see what kind of an engagement ring he wore - a circlet of sapphires round a magnificent diamond and then Susan carefully pinned the long veil of Brussels lace to his piled up hair and he was ready.

Ian had been aware, but had paid no attention to the fact, that his normally quiet and peaceful home had become, with Millie's arrival, a hive of sound and industry. From the various shadowy female figures in his bedroom, the sound of continual comings and goings within the house itself and the grinding of carriage wheels and clatter and stamp of horses' hooves in the drive below his bedroom window, the whole house seemed to throb and vibrate with activity. Now that he was completely ready the fact that he was not just alone with Margaret in his bedroom registered and people and faces came into focus. The elderly aunt who was to act as his mother with something of a pang he realized that Millie's mother had been dead for many years and a number of chat- tering girls, including two lit- tle ones, all dressed the same, who were his bridesmaids. As they all trooped out of the bedroom and downstairs on the way to the carriages and the little village church - this was to be no high society fashionable wedding in the centre of Edin- burgh for the times were far too serious for that Ian in Millie's marvellous body and clothes went slowly downstairs to the hall to where her father waited, a tall, well built fifty- year old in the uniform of a colonel of the Scots Guards.

"Well, Millie m'dear, its nearly time to go. Are you quite ready?"

"Yes, everyone now. including all the servants. Only Sargeant Campbell and a couple of his men will stay to keep an eye on things.'

The 'things' Colonel Mc

Gregor referred to were, besides the normal contents of a very rich man's home, the large quant- ity of expensive wedding gifts which Millie and her fiance had received.

Her fiance! In the golden sunshine of the August morning as the carriage bore him gently towards the village Ian, Millie, thought of Malcol Fulton to whom he was so soon to be married. Her father's choice of a suitable husband for her, she had known him for some years as a pleasant young man. Now she knew that, al- though she quite liked him, by no means did she love him. Curiously, to Ian, this seemed an acceptable state of affairs to her. In an age when marriages were still, at least in the higher levels of Society, arranged by the parents a 'love match' was the exception. To be given a partner who was acceptable in every sense was the hope of every young man and woman. Love could perhaps come later. Millie was, in any case, unlikely to see him for very long after the wedding was over for she had been told the previous evening that he would have to rejoin his unit- he was a Cap- tain in the Royal Artillery- on the following morning as it was bound for France. Witha shudder of horror it occurred to her that she might never see him again. What nonsense, she thought, he'd be back for Chris- tmas at the latest as the war was bound to be over by then.

Later, in the fine old church with the sunshine steaming down, red and blue and golden, through the stained glass windows Ian heard himself re- peat at the minister's bidding:

"I, Millicent Mary,-- take thee, Malcolm Andrew,- to be my lawfully wedded husband"

It was done. The signing of names in the vestry. The raising of his veil my Malcolm and the brush of moustache on his cheek as he was kissed. The slow parade down the aisle