ing uniforms. There was no one going forth from their
home to fight whose going would put the light of life out for her and
cause her to feel sad, beyond the ordinary superficial sadness for the
absence of one's playmates.

She liked them all, her friends, and shrank from having them in danger;
although it was splendid to have them doing something real at last. In
truth until this moment the danger had seemed so remote; the casualty
list of which people spoke with bated breath so much a thing of vast
unknown numbers, that it had scarcely come within her realization as yet.
But now she suddenly read the truth in the suffering eyes of these people
who were met to say good-bye, perhaps a last good-bye, to those who were
dearer than life to them. How would she, Ruth Macdonald, feel, if one of
those boys were her brother or lover? It was inconceivably dreadful.

The band blared on, and the familiar words insisted themselves upon her
unwilling mind:

There's a long, long night of waiting!

A sob at her right made her start and then turn away quickly from the
sight of a mother's grief as she clung to a frail daughter for support,
sobbing with utter abandon, while the daughter kept begging her to "be
calm for Tom's sake."

It was all horrible! Why had she gotten into this situation? Aunt Rhoda
would blame her for it. Aunt Rhoda would say it was too conspicuous,
right there in the front ranks! She put her hand on the starter and
glanced out, hoping to be able to back out and get away, but the road
behind was blocked several deep with cars, and the crowd had closed in
upon her and about her on every side. Retreat was impossible. However,
she noticed with relief that the matter of being conspicuous need not
trouble her. Nobody was looking her way. All eyes were turned in one
direction, toward that straggling, determined line that wound up from the
Borough Hall, past the Post Office and Bank to the station where the Home
Guards stood uniformed, in open silent ranks doing honor to the boys who
were going to fight for them.

Ruth's eyes went reluctantly back to the marching line again. Somehow it
struck her that they would not have seemed so forlorn if they had worn
new trig uniforms, instead of rusty varied civilian clothes. They seemed
like an ill-prepared sacrifice passing in review. Then suddenly her gaze
was riveted upon a single figure, the last man in the procession,
marching alone, with uplifted head an