ight of
its perfume. She never afterwards saw a boronia without recalling the
bewilderment of her fellow-travellers in the railway carriage at her
exquisitely-scented burden.

"You should have seen their wondering noses, Dad!" said Norah,
chuckling.

No one, of course, stayed very long at Homewood, unless he were
hopelessly unfit. From ten days to three weeks was the average stay:
then, like ships that pass in the night, the "Once-Tireds," drifted
away. But very few forgot them. Little notes came from the Fronts,
in green Active Service envelopes: postcards from Mediterranean ports;
letters from East and West Africa; grateful letters from wives in
garrison stations and training camps throughout the British Isles.
They accumulated an extraordinary collection of photographs in
uniform; and Norah had an autograph book with scrawled signatures,
peculiar drawings and an occasional scrap of very bad verse.

Major Hunt, his hand fully recovered, returned to the Front in
February, and his wife prepared to seek another home. But the Lintons
flatly refused to let her go.

"We couldn't do it," said David Linton. "Doesn't the place agree with
the babies?"

"Oh, you know it does," said Mrs. Hunt. "But we have already kept the
cottage far too long--there are other people."

"Not for that cottage," Norah said.

"It really isn't fair," protested their guest. "Douglas never dreamed
of our staying: if he had not been sent out in such a hurry at the
last he would have moved us himself."

David Linton looked at her for a moment.

"Go and play with the babies, Norah," he said. "I want to talk to
this obstinate person."

"Now look, Mrs. Hunt," he said, as Norah went off, rather
relieved--Norah hated arguments. "You know we run this place for an
ideal--a dead man's ideal. _He_ wanted more than anything in the
world to help the war; we're merely carrying on for him. We can only
do it by helping individuals."

"But you have done that for us. Look at Douglas--strong and fit, with
one hand as good as the other. Think of what he was when he came
here!"

"He may not always be fit. And if you stay here you ease his worries
by benefiting his children--and saving for their future. Then, if he
has the bad luck to be wounded again, his house is all ready for him."

"I know," she said. "And I would stay, but that there are others who
need it more."

"Well, we haven't heard of them. Look at it another way. I am
gett