he eyes of love could
ever wish to see.

But Mary couldn't see him that way--not even when she tried--making a
bold little experiment with herself and feeling rather sorry, if
anything, that her heart beat no quicker and not a thrill ran over her,
when her hand rested for a moment on Wally's shoulder.

"I wonder if I'm different from other girls," she thought. "Or is it
because I have other things to think about? Perhaps if I had nothing else
on my mind, I'd dream of love as much as anybody, until it amounted
to--what do they call it?--a fixed idea?--that thing which comes to
people when they keep turning the same thing over and over in their
minds, till they can't get it out of their thoughts?"

But you mustn't think that Mary didn't care that Wally was going--perhaps
never to return. She knew that she liked him--she knew she would miss
him. And when, just before he left, he sang The Spanish Cavalier in that
stirring tenor which always made her scalp tingle and her breast feel
full, she turned her face to the moonlit scene outside and lived one of
those minutes which are so filled with beauty and the stirring of the
spirit that pleasure becomes poignant and brings a feeling which isn't
far from pain.

"I'm off to the war--to the war I must go,
To fight for my country and you, dear;
But if I should fall, in vain I would call
The blessing of my country and you, dear--"

All their eyes were wet then, even Wally's--moved by the sadness of his
own song. Aunt Patty, Aunt Cordelia and Helen wiped their tears away
unashamed, but Mary tried to hide hers.

And when the time came for his departure, Aunt Cordelia kissed him and
breathed in his ear a prayer, and Aunt Patty kissed him and prayed for
him, and Helen kissed him, too, her arms tight around his neck. But when
it came to Mary's turn, she looked troubled and gazed down at her hand
which he was holding in both of his.

"Come on out for a minute," he whispered, gently leading her.

They went out under the moon.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, too?" he asked.

Mary thought it over.

"If I kissed you, I would love you," she said, and tried to hide her
tears no more.

He soothed her then in the immemorial manner, and soon she was tranquil
again.

"Good-bye, Wally," she said.

"Good-bye, dear. You'll promise to be here when I come back?"

"I shall be here."

"And you won't let anybody run away with you until I've had another
chance?"

"Don't worry."