hat flushed, joyous face still so vividly before her, and
with the sound of the eager, childish prattle still ringing in her ears,
she nodded her head in assent, and turned back to the day's duties with
a heaviness of heart that was overwhelming. With that restless, active
figure gone from its accustomed corner, the sun seemed to have set in
mid-day and left the whole world in darkness.

CHAPTER II

THE SCRAP-BOOK BRIGADE

When Peace awoke to her surroundings again, she was lying in the
gorgeously draped bed of the Flag Room with old Dr. Coates bending over
her, and she startled the worthy gentleman by asking in sprightly tones,
"Well, Doctor, how are you? It's been a long time since you've been to
call on me, isn't it? Do you think I have cracked a rib?"

"No, little girl," he answered soberly, but his wrinkled old face
brightened visibly at the sound of her cheery voice. "I _think_ you have
put a kink in your back."

"Will it be all right soon?"

"We hope so, curly pate."

"By tomorrow?"

"O, dear, no! Not for--days." He could not bring himself to tell her
that it might be weeks before he could even determine how badly the
little back was hurt.

"Mercy!" she wailed in consternation, for bed held no charms for that
active body. "And must I stay in bed all that while?"

"My dear child," he answered gravely, "do you realize that you are the
luckiest girl in seven counties tonight?"

"How?" she asked curiously, forgetting her lament in her wonder at his
words.

"It's a miracle that you were not killed outright."

"Well, Johnny dared me."

"And you couldn't pass up a dare?"

She shook her head.

"Well, now my girlie must take her medicine."

Peace looked startled. "I didn't 'xpect to fall," she murmured, and two
tears glistened in her big brown eyes.

The doctor relented. "There, there, little one," he comforted, "don't
feel badly. We'll soon have you up and about--_perhaps_," he added under
his breath.

So he left her smiling and cheerful, but his own heart was heavy as he
descended the stairs after the long examination was ended, a pall of
anxiety hung over the whole household when the door closed behind his
broad back. Peace crippled perhaps for life, perhaps never to walk
without crutches again! It was too dreadful to be true. Peace,--their
gay little butterfly! Peace, whose feet seemed like wings! They never
walked, but danced along with the lightness of a fairy, tripping,
flitting,