land to the softly rounded distant hills it was a view he loved and it never palled for him now gleaming white in the wintry sunshine under a blanket of snow, when he sud- denly stiffened when he again saw the laborious progress of a telegraph boy up the drive. A cold chill clutched him - surely this couldn't be another death and, sick with anxiety, he waited. When it came the news was both better and worse than he had feared. The cable was from Isobel, Malcolm's only sister, telling Millie that she'd just heard that both her remain- ing brothers the twins Bruce and Arthur, had been killed in the same engagement in France. The news was less agon- izing to Millie since she had never known the boys well, but it was so much worse in that this time there were two deaths and not one. And it was more than likely that there would be a third for the boys' and Isobel's widowed mother had had a massive heart attack at the news and was no expected to last through the night.

There was, in fact, a fourth death a very small one. Once more Ian fainted as he read the cable but this time he fell heavily to the floor, striking the corner of a chair as he did so. Although Susan and the other servants quickly got him to bed and sent urgently for the doctor there was never any chance of saving the baby. As the local church bells rang in the New Year the dead child was de- livered.

Ian's body was that of a healthy and vigorous young female and it only took a few weeks for it to recover com- pletely. But his mind was dif- ferent. To his astonishment he found himslef in a deep depres- sion over the loss of his baby he hadn't realized just how much he was looking forward to giv- ing birth to a tiny scrap of humanity, and how often he had caught himself daydreaming

of the future with a charming and elegant young lady as his daughter.

It was fully August before he could be said to be back to normal, and both Millie and he were determined to start to do their part in the war in whatever way they could. So Braefoot House became a conva- lescent home for war wounded and for the next four years they, and Isobel, who had moved in with them and shut up her own home for the duration of the war, nursed a never-ending stream of injured men back to health. Although the service they gave to the country had been very well worth while both Ian and Millie were very thankful to be able to put away the uni- forms they had worn for so long and return to ordinary clothes when, late in 1919, the house was returned to the.

Most of the time, in the succeeding years, since their physical body was female and living the life of a normal, if very wealthy, woman it was Millie who was active in their day-to-day existence and Ian only became to the fore ocas- sionally. He did, indeed, retain at all times the knowledge of his own identity but he was only really aware of it when some situation called for a masc- uline reaction or when Millie did something for his special delight. She well knew of his love of clothes and any occassion on which she was required to dress with more than her normal care and taste would find him very much aware of what was happening, and his pleasure and excitement would be communi- cated to her to such an extent that they would both feel and almost sensual joy course throu- ghout their body. Since fashion interested her intensely the visits to dressmakers were very fre- quent and the contents of their wardrobes grew so great that dresses and costumes were constantly being reviewed and anything less than perfect des-

troyed or given away. It was at this time- the early 1920's that Millie started her storeroom collection of very special out- fits, rescuing from various boxes and drawers those which she had stored away in earlier years.

The years rolled by and, as she grew older, Millie's face and figure continued to grow in beauty rather than to age. She became the center of much of the social activity in and around Edinburgh, and Brae- foot House became reowned over a very large area for the open-handed hospitality whic was always in evidence. As an unattached and very desir- able in every way young woman there was no lack of suitors for Millie's hand, a situation, which did not seem very unusual to the now totally feminely oriented Ian. Most of the men who sought her hand had a scarcely disguised interest in her bank balance; nearly all lusted after her gorgeous body; a few a very few, made an attempt to woo her as a potential mar- riage partner. Both Ian and Millie were prepared to take another husband if the right man appeared but none did so. There was always a snag, some flaw in every candidate, and at the back of Ian's and, to a lesser extent, Millie's mind was the remembrance of the hor- ror of the wedding night in the Edinburgh hotel which was an unspoken, but very real, obst- acle, to a new relationship.

Time passed and Ian grew older. His isiter-in-law, Isobel, who had produced a son pretty late in life - he wasn't born until 1930 when she was nearly thirty-five and died following a riding accident in 1937 and so escaped the horror and des- truction of World War Two. During those long, long years of war Ian, whose still marve- llous body carried its years lightly, again turned Braefoot House into a convalescent home and for the next five and a half years slaved to the considerable