nd forms before
a quickening sympathy with man, a clearer understanding of human
complexities. And as he recalled them his associates had been slaves to
creed and form, worshippers of the letter of Christianity while
unconsciously they violated the spirit of Christ. Thompson had no wish
to renew those old friendships, not even any curiosity about them. So he
passed them by and went to see his aunts, who had fed and clothed him,
to whom he felt a vague sort of allegiance if no particular affection.

It seemed to Thompson like reliving a very vivid sort of dream to get
off a street car at a certain corner, to walk four blocks south and turn
into the yard before a small brick cottage with a leafless birch rising
out of the tiny grass plot and the bleached vines of sweet peas draping
the fence palings.

The woman who opened the door at his knock stood before him a living
link with that dreamlike past, unchanged except in minor details, a
little more spare perhaps and grayer for the years he had been gone, but
dressed in the same dull black, with the same spotless apron, the same
bit of a white lace cap over her thin hair, the same pince-nez astride a
high bony nose.

Aunt Lavina did not know him in his uniform. He made himself known. The
old lady gazed at him searchingly. Her lips worked. She threw her arms
about his neck, laughing and sobbing in the same breath.

"Surely, it's myself," Thompson patted her shoulder. "I'm off to the
front in a few days and I thought I'd better look you up. How's Aunt
Hattie?"

Aunt Lavina disengaged herself from his arms, her glasses askew, her
faded old eyes wet, yet smiling as Thompson could not recall ever seeing
her smile.

"What a spectacle for the neighbors," she said breathlessly. "Me, at my
time of life, hugging and kissing a soldier on the front step. Do come
in, Wesley. Harriet will be so pleased. My dear boy, you don't know how
we have worried about you. How well you look."

She drew him into the parlor. A minute later Aunt Harriet, with less
fervor than her sister perhaps, made it clear that she was unequivocally
glad to see him, that any past rancor for his departure from grace was
dead and buried.

They were beyond the sweeping current of everyday life, living their
days in a back eddy, so to speak. But they were aware of events, of the
common enemy, of the straining effort of war, and they were proud of
their nephew in the King's uniform. They twittered over him like