ed Ailsa, "and you
are a West Point graduate."

Her brother-in-law looked at her with a strange sort of humour in
his handsome, near-sighted eyes:

"Yes, too blind to serve the country that educated me. And now
it's too late; the desire is gone; I have no inclination to fight,
Ailsa. Drums always annoyed me. I don't particularly like a gun.
I don't care for a fuss. I don't wish to be a soldier."

Ailsa said: "I rather like the noise of drums. I think I'd
like--war."

"Molly Pitcher! Molly Pitcher! Of what are you babbling,"
whispered Celia, laughing down the flashes of pain that ran through
her heart. "Wars are ended in our Western World. Didn't you know
it, grandchild of Vikings? There are to be no more Lake
Champlains, only debates--_n'est ce pas_, Curt?--very grand debates
between gentlemen of the South and gentlemen of the North in
Congress assembled----"

"_Two_ congresses assembled," said Ailsa calmly, "and the debates
will be at long range----"

"By magnetic telegraph if you wish, Honey-bell," conceded Celia
hastily. "Oh, we must _not_ begin disputin' about matters that
nobody can possibly he'p. It will all come right; you know it
will, don't you, Curt?"

"Yes, I know it, somehow."

Silence, fragrance, and darkness, through which rang the distant
laugh of a young girl. And, very, very far away sounds arose in
the city, dull, indistinct, lost for moments at a time, then
audible again, and always the same sounds, the same monotony, and
distant persistence.

"I do believe they're calling an extra," said Ailsa, lifting her
head to listen.

Celia listened, too.

"Children shouting at play," she said.

"They _are_ calling an extra, Celia!"

"No, little Cassandra, it's only boys skylarking."

For a while they remained listening and silent. The voices still
persisted, but they sounded so distant that the light laughter from
their neighbour's stoop drowned the echoes.

Later, Jimmy Lent drifted into the family circle.

"They say that there's an extra out about Fort Sumter," he said.
"Do you think he's given up, Mr. Craig?"

"If there's an extra out the fort is probably safe enough, Jim,"
said the elder man carelessly. He rose and went toward the group
of girls and youths under the trees.

"Come, children," he said to his two daughters; and was patient
amid indignant protests which preceded the youthful interchange of
reluctant good-nights.

When he returned to the stoop Ailsa ha