aid Rowena. "I have wanted to kiss you many
a time, but didn't dare. But now--you are going to the war"--there was
a little break in her voice--"where men die. Good-bye, Larry, dear boy,
good-bye." She put her arms about him. "And don't keep Jane waiting,"
she whispered in his ear.

"If I were a German, Larry," said Hugo, giving him both hands, "I would
kiss you too, old boy, but being plain American, I can only say good
luck. God bless you."

"You will find Elfie in her room," said Rowena. "She refuses to say
good-bye where any one can see her. She is not going to weep. Soldiers'
women do not weep, she says. Poor kid!"

Larry found Elfie in her room, with high lights as of fever on her
cheeks and eyes glittering.

"I am not going to cry," she said between her teeth. "You need not be
afraid, Larry. I am going to be like the Canadian women."

Larry took the child in his arms, every muscle and every nerve in her
slight body taut as a fiddle-string. He smoothed her hair gently and
began to talk quietly with her.

"What good times we have had!" he said. "I remember well the very first
night I saw you. Do you?"

"Oh," she breathed, "don't speak of it, or I can't hold in."

"Elfie," said Larry, "our Canadian women when they are seeing their men
off at the station do not cry; they smile and wave their hands. That is,
many of them do. But in their own rooms, like this, they cry as much as
they like."

"Oh, Larry, Larry," cried the child, flinging herself upon him. "Let me
cry, then. I can't hold in any longer."

"Neither can I, little girl. See, Elfie, there is no use trying not to,
and I am not ashamed of it, either," said Larry.

The pent-up emotion broke forth in a storm of sobbing and tears that
shook the slight body as the tempest shakes the sapling. Larry,
holding her in his arms, talked to her about the good days they had had
together.

"And isn't it fine to think that we have those forever, and, whenever
we want to, we can bring them back again? And I want you to remember,
Elfie, that when I was very lonely and homesick here you were the one
that helped me most."

"And you, Larry, oh, what you did for me!" said the child. "I was so
sick and miserable and bad and cross and hateful."

"That was just because you were not fit," said Larry. "But now you are
fit and fine and strong and patient, and you will always be so. Remember
it is a soldier's duty to keep fit." Elfie nodded. "And I want you to
send me