"I can't believe that war should ever be necessary. I hate, I hate war."

"I remember," answered Mrs. Winthrop, "you had an eloquent paper before the Peace Department of the Woman's Club. I

didn't agree with you, but I thought it a very-striking paper."

Unconsciously Mrs. Hardy was gripping and twisting her hands. A blur of red stained her cheek, mounted to her brow.

"I wondered," mused Mrs. Winthrop, "what personal experience of yours had made

you feel so-in

tensely."

"Do you mind if I tell you?" "Please tell me," said Mrs. Winthrop gently.

"It was like this. My father was a soldier in the Civil War. He went as a boy only eighteen; and he received wounds that made him an invalid for the rest of his life. I only remember him as going about in a wheeled chair. He died when I was a very little girl."

"My husband told me about him. He was quite wonderful. In spite of his affliction, he did so much."

"He did; he made a good living for his family. And he was patience itself. He didn't know of

his condition when he married my mother; it came on so gradually, but she often said that it wouldn't have made a pin's difference-she loved him so much. But she hated war because of what it had done to him; and she brought me up to hate it. He left us a comfortable little fortune, but the man he made executor without bond, because he was a prominent Grand Army man and had fought all through the war and bragged all through the rest of his life, invested it so badly it was all lost and mother and I-how we had to pinch and scrape. I can never forget how mother would sit with the tears

rolling down her face and tell me how dreadful was war!

"Don't ever marry a soldier!' she would say; and I promised; but what good did it do. My husband belonged to the national guard. I didn't know he was a guardsman, I thought he was a grocer. So he was, but he belonged to the guard; enlisted for three years. I didn't dream that there would be a war; I was so happy I didn't think anything about it. I hardly objected when he reenlisted. His father, you know, was an old Grand Army man who fought through the Civil War, Captain Victor Hardy."

"A very fine man, too,"-interrupted Mrs. Winthrop.

"Yes, a very fine man," acquiesced the other, a touch of the bitter in her speech, "yet he has caused me a great deal of suffering. He was always talking about the country; and he helped every old wreck that came along who pretended he had been a soldier; and he would give little Victor-his grandsonguns and toy soldiers; and he made fun of my peace principles-oh, very good-natured fun. I didn't mind. Then the Spanish War came. And my husband was a guardsman. He had to go. I knew then how my mother had felt. Captain