rning off the main light and
leaving only the shaded radiance of the reading-lamp. She turned the
shade of it so that the light would fall on the letter while she sat
on the cushion, and then she bent down, kissed her godfather, and went
to the door. "I won't be a moment, Uncle Bob," she said. "Help yourself,
and get comfortable."

Five minutes later the door opened and she came in. As she moved into
the circle of light, the man felt an absurd satisfaction, as if he were
partly responsible for the dignified figure with its beautifully waved
soft, fair hair, of which he was so proud. She smiled on him, and sat
down at his feet, leaning back against his chair and placing her left
elbow on his knees. He laid a caressing hand on her arm, and then looked
steadily in front of him lest he should see more than she wished.

Hilda rustled the sheets. "The first is all about me," she explained,
"and I'll skip that. Let me see--yes, here we are. Now listen. It's
rather long, but you mustn't say anything till I've finished."

"'Saturday' (Peter's letter ran) I gave up to getting ready for Sunday,
though Harold' (he's the O.C. of the camp, Peter says, a jolly decent
sort of man) 'wanted me to go up town with him. I had had a talk with him
about the services, and had fixed up to have a celebration in the morning
in the Y.M.C.A. in camp--they have a quiet room, and there is a table in
it that one puts against the wall and uses for an altar--and an evening
service in the canteen-hall part of the place. I couldn't have a morning
service, as I was to go out to the forest camp, as I have told you.' He
said in his first letter how he had been motored out to see a camp in the
forest where they are cutting wood for something, and he had fixed up a
parade," said Hilda, looking up. Doyle nodded gravely, and she went on
reading: "'Harold said he'd like to take Communion, and that I could put
up a notice in the anteroom of the Officers' Mess.

"'Well, I spent the morning preparing sermons. I thought I'd preach from
"The axe is laid to the root of the tree" in the forest, and make a sort
of little parable out of it for the men. I planned to say how Christ was
really watching and testing each one of us, especially out here, and to
begin by talking a bit about Germany, and how the axe was being laid to
that tree because it wouldn't bear good fruit. I couldn't get much for
the evening, so I thought I'd leave it, and perhaps say much the same as
th