are the things you like?"

She nodded. "I think I do. George Dalton says it is only because I crave
a change. But it isn't that. And I haven't told him the way I feel about
it--the Dickens way--as I have told you."

He was glad that she had not talked to Dalton as she had talked to him.

"I wonder," he said slowly, "why you couldn't shake yourself free from
the life which binds you?"

"I'm not strong enough. I'm like the drug-fiend, who doesn't want his
drug, but can't give it up."

"Perhaps you need--help. There are doctors of everything, you know, in
these days."

"None that can cure me of the habit of frivolity--of the claims of
custom----"

"If a man takes a drug, he is cured by substituting something else for a
while until he learns to do without it."

"What would you substitute for--my drug?"

"I'll have to think about it. May I come again and tell you?"

"Of course. I am dying to know."

Mrs. Flippin entered just then with a tall pitcher of lemonade and a
plate of delicate cakes. "I think Miss MacVeigh is looking mighty fine,"
she said; "don't you, Major?"

He would not have dared to tell how fine she looked to him.

He limped across the room with the plate of cakes, and poured lemonade
into a glass for Madge. Her eyes followed his strong soldierly figure.
What a man he must have been before the war crippled him. What a man he
was still, and his strength was not merely that of body. She felt the
strength too of mind and soul.

"I think," said Mrs. Flippin that night, "that Major Prime is one of the
nicest men."

Madge was in bed. The nurse had made her ready for the night, and was
out on the porch with Mr. Flippin. Mrs. Flippin had fallen into the
habit of having a little nightly talk with Madge. She missed her
daughter, and Madge was pleasant and friendly.

"I think that Major Prime is one of the nicest men," repeated Mrs.
Flippin as she sat down beside the bed, "but what a dreadful thing that
he is lame."

"I am not sure," Madge said, "that it is dreadful."

She hastened to redeem herself from any possible charge of
bloodthirstiness.

"I don't mean," she said, "that it isn't awful for a man to lose his leg.
But men who go through a thing like that and come out--conquerors--are
rather wonderful, Mrs. Flippin."

Madge had hold of Mrs. Flippin's hand. She often held it in this quiet
hour, and the idea rather amused her. She was not demonstrative, and it
seemed inconceivable that she sho