d not be a bit of good here. You may be there."

"You are quite right," she replied sadly. "I'd be worse than no good.
I'd need 'first aid,' at the first shot."

"I'm going with her," said the Sculptor. "I'd be more useless than she
would." And he turned a questioning look at the Lawyer.

"I must go back. I've business to attend to. Anyway, I'd be an
encumbrance here. I may be useful there. Who knows?"

As for me, every one knew what I proposed to do, and that left every
one accounted for except the Violinist. He had been in his favorite
attitude by the tree, just as he had been on that evening when it had
been proposed to "tell stories," gazing first at one and then at
another, as the hurried conversation went on.

"Well," he said, finding all eyes turned on him, "I am going to London
with the Journalist--if he is really going."

"All right, I am," was the reply.

"And from London I shall get to St. Petersburg. I have a dream that
out of all this something may happen to Poland. If it does, I propose
to be there. I'll be no good at holding a gun--I could never fire one.
But if, by some miracle, there comes out of this any chance for the
'Fair Land of Poland' to crawl out, or be dragged out, from under the
feet of the invader--well, I'll go _home_--and--and--"

He hesitated.

"And grow up with the country," shouted the Youngster. "Bully for
you."

"I may only go back to fiddle over the ruins. But who knows? At all
events, I'll go back and carry with me all that your country had done
for three generations of my family. They'll need it."

"Well," said the Doctor, "that is all settled. Enough for to-night.
We'll still have one or two, and it may be three days left together.
Let us make the most of them. They will never come again."

"And to think what a lovely summer we had planned," sighed the
Divorcee.

"Tush!" ejaculated the Doctor. "We had a lovely time all last year. As
for this summer, I imagine that it has been far finer than what we
planned. Anyway, let us be thankful that it was _this_ summer that we
all found one another again."

"Better go to bed," cried the Critic; "the Doctor is getting
sentimental--a bad sign in an army surgeon."

"I don't know," remarked the Trained Nurse; "I've seen those that were
more sentimental than the Journalist, and none the worse for it."

IX

THE VIOLINIST'S STORY

THE SOUL OF THE SONG

THE TALE OF A FIANCEE

On Saturday most of the men made a run