e her father's leg
spasmodically. Standing there, Mrs. Gerhardt would look on the bright
side, and explain to Gerhardt how well everything was going, and he
mustn't fret about them, and how kind the police were, and how auntie
asked after him, and Minnie would get a prize; and how he oughtn't to
mope, but eat his food, and look on the bright side. And Gerhardt would
smile the smile which went into her heart just like a sword, and say:

"All right, Dollee. I'm getting on fine." Then, when the whistle blew
and he had kissed little Violet, they would be quite silent, looking at
each other. And she would say in a voice so matter-of-fact that it could
have deceived no one:

"Well, I must go now. Good-bye, old man!"

And he would say:

"Good-bye, Dollee. Kiss me."

They would kiss, and holding little Violet's hand very hard she would
hurry away in the crowd, taking care not to look back for fear she might
suddenly lose sight of the bright side. But as the months went on,
became a year, eighteen months, two years, and still she went weekly to
see her "prince" in his Palace, that visit became for her the hardest
experience of all her hard week's doings. For she was a realist, as well
as a heroine, and she could see the lines of despair not only in her
man's heart but in his face. For a long time he had not said: "I'm
getting on fine, Dollee." His face had a beaten look, his figure had
wasted, he complained of his head.

"It's so noisy," he would say constantly; "oh! it's so noisy--never a
quiet moment--never alone--never--never--never--never. And not enough to
eat; it's all reduced now, Dollee."

She learned to smuggle food into his hands, but it was very little, for
they had not enough at home either, with the price of living ever going
up and her depleted income ever stationary. They had--her "man" told
her--made a fuss in the papers about their being fed like turkeycocks,
while the "Huns" were sinking the ships. Gerhardt, always a spare little
man, had lost eighteen pounds. She, naturally well covered, was getting
thin herself, but that she did not notice, too busy all day long, and
too occupied in thinking of her "man." To watch him week by week, more
hopeless, as the months dragged on, was an acute torture, to disguise
which was torture even more acute. She had long seen that there _was_ no
bright side, but if she admitted that she knew she would go down; so she
did not. And she carefully kept from Gerhardt such ma