garet ashes, and carefully inspecting each new vase
of flowers. He stopped in front of a basket of exquisite small orchids.

"Who sent this?" he demanded.

"Rodney Page. Doesn't it look like him?"

He turned and stared at her.

"What's come over Clayton Spencer? Is he blind?"

"Blind?"

"About Rodney. He's head over heels in love with Natalie Spencer, God
alone knows why."

"I daresay it isn't serious. He is always in love with somebody."

"There's a good bit of talk. I don't give a hang for either of them, but
I'm fond of Clayton. So are you. Natalie's out in the country now,
and Rodney is there every week-end. It's a scandal, that's all. As for
Natalie herself, she ought to be interned as a dangerous pacifist. She's
a martyr, in her own eyes. Thank heaven there aren't many like her."

Audrey leaned back against her pillows.

"I wonder, Terry," she said, "if you haven't shown me what to do next. I
might be able to reach some of the women like Natalie. There are some of
them, and they've got to learn that if they don't stand behind the men,
we're lost."

"Fine!" he agreed. "Get 'em to knit less and write more letters,
cheerful letters. Tell 'em to remember that by the time their man gets
the letter the baby's tooth will be through. There are a good many
men in the army-camps to-day vicariously cutting teeth. Get after 'em,
Audrey! A worried man is a poor soldier."

After he had gone, she had the nurse bring her paper and pencil, and she
wrote, rather incoherently, it is true, her first appeal to the women of
the country. It was effective, too. Audrey was an effective person.
When Clayton came for his daily visit she had just finished it, and was
reading it over with considerable complacency.

"I've become an author, Clay," she said, "I think myself I'm terribly
good at it. May I read it to you?"

He listened gravely, but with a little flicker of amusement in his
eyes. How like her it was, to refuse to allow herself even time to get
entirely well! But when she finished he was thoughtful. She had called
it "Slacker Women." That was what Natalie was; he had never put it into
words before. Natalie was a slacker.

He had never discussed Natalie's attitude toward the war with Audrey. He
rather thought she was entirely ignorant of it. But her little article,
glowing with patriotism, frank, simple, and convincing, might have been
written to Natalie herself.

"It is very fine," he said. "I rather think you ha