one but Miss Danvers and me, and uncle,
who lives up aloft in his big house across the way, where he has a
lookout tower. I always feel like calling up to him when I go there,
'Oh, Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anybody coming?'"

She was talking nervously, with her cheeks as white as a lily, but with
her eyes shining. The Admiral glanced at Hare. The young man was
drinking in her beauty. But suddenly he frowned and turned away his
eyes.

"It was very good of you to ask me over," he said, formally.

That steadied Petronella. Her nervous self-consciousness fled, and she
was at once the gracious, impersonal hostess.

The Admiral glowed with pride of her. "She'll carry it off," he said to
himself; "it's in her blood."

"Dinner is served," announced Jenkins from the doorway, and then Miss
Danvers came down and greeted Justin, and they all went out together.

There was holly for a centerpiece, and four red candles in silver
holders. The table was of richly carved mahogany, and the Admiral,
following an old custom, served the soup from a silver tureen, upheld by
four fat cupids. From the wide arch which led into the great hall was
hung a bunch of mistletoe; beyond the arch, the roaring fire made a
background of gleaming, golden light.

To the young surgeon it seemed a fairy scene flaming with the color and
glow of a life which he had never known. He had lived so long surrounded
by the bare, blank walls of a hospital. Even Petronella's soft green
gown seemed made of some mystical stuff which had nothing in common with
the cool white or blue starchiness of the uniforms of nurses.

They talked of many things, covering with, their commonplaces the
tenseness of the situation. Then suddenly the conversation took a
significant turn.

"I love these stormy nights," Petronella had said, "with the snow
blowing, and the wind, and the house all warm and bright."

"Think of the poor sailors at sea," Hare had reminded her.

"Please--I don't want to think of them. We have done our best for them,
uncle and I. We have opened a reading-room down by the docks, so that
all who are ashore can have soup and coffee and sandwiches, and there's
a big stove, and newspapers and magazines."

"You dispense charity?"

"Why not?" she asked him, confidently. "We have plenty--why shouldn't we
give?"

"Because it takes away from their manhood to receive."

The Admiral spoke bluntly. "The men don't feel it that way. This
charity, as you call i