ness which her own scheming must bring him. If he came too late he would be bitterly disappointed. Her mind rang the change of his sentences in the last interview; of the whirling words which had stunned her, trying, somehow, to make it plain to herself. All the while she was dimly conscious that the chauffeur was amiably acting as cicerone; describing the streets, the buildings, the vast advantages of Des Moines. He was an undersized, lean chap; deeply freckled, with sharp eyes and curly, pale brown hair. An ardent patriot himself, he had tried in vain to deceive the recruiting officer by three

years and make himself out eighteen. Since he could not enlist, his one consolation was to talk about the soldiers and appear a young man of military parts. He knew the names of all the officers and all the widely assorted gossip of the camp. This he imparted to his passenger, but only now and then did she hear a word that he said. Her mind had drifted back to her long combat with the dead Captain, for her son's soul. Somehow the arguments that had once seemed so convincing to her to-day looked futile and unreal.

They were crossing the fields; far away, beyond the stunted trees,

were the long lines of tents, the rough wooden buildings, the flags flying. She thought of her father. He would have sided with the old Captain. The breeze bore to her the faint notes of a bugle; and again that same amazing thrill shook her heart.' She thought of Mrs. Winthrop, a soldier's daughter, but no more a soldier's daugh ter than she herself.

By now they were on the outskirts of the camp. Several men came out of one of the tents and stood looking about. Their uniforms were untidy and splashed with great streaks of yellow paint. Their shoulders stooped; there was

nothing military about their bear

ing.

“Uh-r-r-r, uh-r-r-r," grunted the chauffeur. "I'd like to get near enough to spit on 'em." "Why?" asked Mrs. Hardy. "They're the yellow cowards that wouldn't take the Federal oath! Well, they're getting theirs now; nobody'll have anything to do with 'em or to say to 'em. They was drummed out of their company and the boys daubed their uniforms with yellow paint, and they got to police the camp. They say one of 'em's mother kep' writin' him not to take the oath 'cause she believed war was so wicked."

Ellen Hardy wondered how that boy felt toward his mother. For the first time it came to her that her boy's life belonged to him. For the first time she realized the humiliation that he might have to suffer in such a case. She was making a martyr of him without giving him the martyr's faith.

Probably by now he was raging at the delay of his chauffeur. It was fortunate that he did not know how to run a machine himself; for she was sure that he was quite capable of commandeering the car if he suspected the chauffeur. Would they charge him with collusion in the delay?