ound, but the way no longer
seemed dusty and blinded with sunshine. It shone like a path of glory
before his willing feet, and he went to his afternoon round of duties
like a new man. He had a friend, a real friend, one that he had known a
long time. There was no fear that she was just writing to him to get one
more soldier at her feet as some girls would have done. Her letter was
too frank and sincere to leave a single doubt about what she meant. He
would take her at her word.

Sometime during the course of the afternoon it occurred to him to look at
the date of the letter, and he found to his dismay that it had been
written nearly four weeks before and had been travelling around through
various departments in search of him, because it had not the correct
address. He readily guessed that she had not wanted to ask for his
company and barracks; she would not have known who to ask. She did not
know his mother, and who else was there? His old companions were mostly
gone to France or camp somewhere.

And now, since all this time had elapsed she would think he had not
cared, had scorned her letter or thought it unmaidenly! He was filled
with dismay and anxiety lest he had hurt her frankness by his seeming
indifference. And the knitted things, the wonderful things that she had
made with her fair hands! Would she have given them to some one else by
this time? Of course, it meant little to her save as a kind of
acknowledgment for something she thought he had done for her as a child,
but they meant so much to him! Much more than they ought to do, he knew,
for he was in no position to allow himself to become deeply attached to
even the handiwork of any girl in her position. However, nobody need ever
know how much he cared, had always cared, for the lovely little girl with
her blue eyes, her long curls, her shy sweet smile and modest ways, who
had seemed to him like an angel from heaven when he was a boy. She had
said he did not know that he was helping her when he burst through the
hedge on the cowering Chuck Woodcock; and he would likely never dare to
tell her that it was because he saw her fright and saw her hide behind
that tree that he went to investigate and so was able to administer a
just punishment. He had picked that rose from the extreme west corner of
a great petted rose bush on the Wainwright lawn, reaching through an
elaborate iron fence to get it as he went cross-lots back to school. He
would call it stealing now t