n I found out Mr. Mead's dog hadn't hurt my kitten--I
thought he had shooken it to death, you know--father looked awful
solemn and said I must never say that again about a kitten. But I
couldn't understand why, Mrs. Blythe. I felt awful thankful, and it
must have been God that saved Stripey, because that Mead dog had
'normous jaws, and oh, how it shook poor Stripey. And so why couldn't I
thank Him? 'Course," added Bruce reminiscently, "maybe I said it too
loud--'cause I was awful glad and excited when I found Stripey was all
right. I 'most shouted it, Mrs. Blythe. Maybe if I'd said it sort of
whispery like you and father it would have been all right. Do you know,
Mrs. Blythe"--Bruce dropped to a "whispery" tone, edging a little
nearer to Anne--"what I would like to do to the Kaiser if I could?"

"What would you like to do, laddie?"

"Norman Reese said in school to-day that he would like to tie the
Kaiser to a tree and set cross dogs to worrying him," said Bruce
gravely. "And Emily Flagg said she would like to put him in a cage and
poke sharp things into him. And they all said things like that. But
Mrs. Blythe"--Bruce took a little square paw out of his pocket and put
it earnestly on Anne's knee--"I would like to turn the Kaiser into a
good man--a very good man--all at once if I could. That is what I would
do. Don't you think, Mrs. Blythe, that would be the very worstest
punishment of all?"

"Bless the child," said Susan, "how do you make out that would be any
kind of a punishment for that wicked fiend?"

"Don't you see," said Bruce, looking levelly at Susan, out of his
blackly blue eyes, "if he was turned into a good man he would
understand how dreadful the things he has done are, and he would feel
so terrible about it that he would be more unhappy and miserable than
he could ever be in any other way. He would feel just awful--and he
would go on feeling like that forever. Yes"--Bruce clenched his hands
and nodded his head emphatically, "yes, I would make the Kaiser a good
man--that is what I would do--it would serve him 'zackly right."

CHAPTER XXVI

SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE

An aeroplane was flying over Glen St. Mary, like a great bird poised
against the western sky--a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery
yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast, wind-freshened space of
freedom. The little group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it with
fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusua