through the night, and at
daylight his throat was perfectly clear and his temperature was almost
normal. When I made sure of that I turned and looked at Mary Vance. She
was sitting on the lounge laying down the law to Susan on some subject
about which Susan must have known forty times as much as she did. But I
didn't mind how much law she laid down or how much she bragged. She had
a right to brag--she had dared to do what I would never have dared, and
had saved Jims from a horrible death. It didn't matter any more that
she had once chased me through the Glen with a codfish; it didn't
matter that she had smeared goose-grease all over my dream of romance
the night of the lighthouse dance; it didn't matter that she thought
she knew more than anybody else and always rubbed it in--I would never
dislike Mary Vance again. I went over to her and kissed her.

"'What's up now?' she said.

"'Nothing--only I'm so grateful to you, Mary.'

"'Well, I think you ought to be, that's a fact. You two would have let
that baby die on your hands if I hadn't happened along,' said Mary,
just beaming with complacency. She got Susan and me a tip-top breakfast
and made us eat it, and 'bossed the life out of us,' as Susan says, for
two days, until the roads were opened so that she could get home. Jims
was almost well by that time, and father turned up. He heard our tale
without saying much. Father is rather scornful generally about what he
calls 'old wives' remedies.' He laughed a little and said, 'After this,
Mary Vance will expect me to call her in for consultation in all my
serious cases.'

"So Christmas was not so hard as I expected it to be; and now the New
Year is coming--and we are still hoping for the 'Big Push' that will
end the war--and Little Dog Monday is getting stiff and rheumatic from
his cold vigils, but still he 'carries on,' and Shirley continues to
read the exploits of the aces. Oh, nineteen-seventeen, what will you
bring?"

CHAPTER XXV

SHIRLEY GOES

"No, Woodrow, there will be no peace without victory," said Susan,
sticking her knitting needle viciously through President Wilson's name
in the newspaper column. "We Canadians mean to have peace and victory,
too. You, if it pleases you, Woodrow, can have the peace without the
victory"--and Susan stalked off to bed with the comfortable
consciousness of having got the better of the argument with the
President. But a few days later she rushed to Mrs. Blythe in red-hot
ex