s a hush in the peaceful, firelit, lamp-lit room. And with that,
as of one impulse, led by the Senator, the five men broke into
handclapping. Tears stood in eyes, faces were twisted with emotion; each
of these men had seen what the thing was--war; each knew what a price
humanity had paid for freedom. Out of the stirring of emotion, out of
the visions of trenches and charges and blood and agony and heroism and
unselfishness and steadfastness, the fighting parson, he who had bent,
under fire, many a day over dying men who waited his voice to help them
across the border--the parson led the little company from the intense
moment to commonplace.

"You haven't quite finished the story, General. The boy promised to do
two things. He did the first; he gave the Judge 'something more than a
dollar,' and the Judge took it--his life. But he said also he was going
to marry--what did he call her?--Miss Angel. How about that?"

The Russian General, standing on the hearthrug, appeared to draw himself
up suddenly with an access of dignity, and the Judge's boyish big laugh
broke into the silence, "Tell them, Michael," said the Judge. "You've
gone so far with the fairy story that they have a right to know the
crowning glory of it. Tell them."

And suddenly the men sitting about noticed with one accord what,
listening to the General's voice, they had not thought about--that the
Russian was uncommonly tall--six feet four perhaps; that his face was
carved in sweeping lines like a granite hillside, and that an old, long
scar stretched from the vivid eyes to the mouth. The men stared,
startled with a sudden simultaneous thought. The Judge, watching,
smiled. Slowly the General put his hand into the breast pocket of his
evening coat; slowly he drew out a case of dark leather, tooled
wonderfully, set with stones. He opened the case and looked down; the
strong face changed as if a breeze and sunshine passed over a mountain.
He glanced up at the men waiting.

"I am no Duke's brother," he said, smiling, suddenly radiant. "That is a
mistake of the likeness of a name, which all the world makes. I am born
a mujik of Russia. But you, sir," and he turned to the parson, "you wish
an answer of 'Miss Angel,' as the big peasant boy called that lovely
spirit, so far above him in that night, so far above him still, and yet,
God be thanked, so close today! Yes? Then this is my answer." He held
out the miniature set with jewels.

ROBINA'S DOLL

Ma