te disquietingly far from the
present--told of the fight. It thrilled the four in the pleasant New
England kitchen. The peaceful walls opened wide, and they were out in
far spaces, patrolling the windy sky, mounting, diving, dodging
through wisps of cloud, kings of the air, hunting for combat. Their
eyes shone and their breathing quickened, and for a minute they forgot
the boy who was dead.

"Why the Hun didn't bag me, instead of my getting him," wrote Bob, "is
a mystery. Just the luck of beginners, I guess. I did most of the
things I shouldn't have done, and, by chance, one or two of the things
I should--fired when I was too far off, went into a spinning nose-dive
under the mistaken notion it would make me a poor target, etc., etc.,
etc. Oh, I was green, all right! He knew how to manoeuver, that Hun
did. That's what feazes me. How did I manage to top him at last? Well,
I did. And my gun didn't jam. Nuff said."

"Gee!" said Henry between his teeth. "And Ted Gordon had to go and
miss all that! Gee!"

"If he had only got to the front!" sighed Laura.

"Anything from Pete?" asked the boy.

"No."

"Sid?"

She shook her head. "We had a letter from Sid day before yesterday,
you know."

"Sid lays 'em down pretty thick sometimes. Well, I must be getting on.
This isn't weeding cabbages."

The three girls, left alone, reacted each in her own way to the touch
of the dark wings that had so suddenly brushed the rim of their blithe
young lives. Priscilla frankly didn't understand, but her sensitive
spirit felt the chill of the event, and her big eyes gazed with a
tinge of wonder at the blue sky and sunshine of the world outside.

"Seems sort of queer it's so bright," she remarked.

Laura was busy, as were thousands of sisters at that very minute and
every minute all over the land, scotching the fears that are always
lying in wait, ready to lift their ugly heads. Queer the letters had
come through so tardily! Where was Bob, her darling big brother, this
minute? Where was Pete Fearing, hardly less dear than Bob? Pictures
clicked through her brain, pictures built on newspaper prints that she
had seen. But one died twice that way, she reflected, and it did no
good. So she put the letters on the shelf beside the clock and brought
out the potatoes for dinner.

"Ted Gordon was in the Yale Battery last summer," she remarked. "He
came up from camp to get his degree this year. Mrs. Gordon and Harriet
went down. He was Scroll an