ful of them, and with these he
came to where the young lady was seated. He drew up a stool and took out
a big knife.

"Now," said she, gazing through her gold-rimmed spectacles far out into
the sunlit garden, "this is the story of a girl."

John Gayther nodded approvingly. The story of a girl was exactly what he
would like to hear, provided it was told by the young lady who sat in
front of him.

"She was of an independent turn of mind," said the Daughter of the
House, "and there were a great many things in this world which bored
her, not because they were uninteresting in themselves, but because she
could not enjoy them in the way which suited her. She had thought of
hundreds of things she would like to do if she only could do them in her
own way and without control by other people. She was very anxious to
perform deeds, noble deeds if possible, but she could not endure the
everlasting control which seems to be thought necessary in this
world--at least, for girls. The consequence of this was that she spent a
great deal of her time in doing things which made no imprint whatever
upon the progress of the world or upon the elevation of her own
character.

"Now it happened that at the time of my story there was a war in the
land, and a great many people with whom my heroine was acquainted went
forth to do battle for their country and their principles, or to act
patriotically in some other way than fighting. I forgot to say that my
heroine is named Almia--"

"De Ponsett, I suppose," interrupted John Gayther. "Almia de Ponsett is
the name of a beautiful new white tea-rose."

"Not at all," said the young lady, drawing her eyebrows slightly
together; "there is no 'de Ponsett' about it, and her name has nothing
to do with tea-roses. It is simply Almia. She grew more and more
dissatisfied every day the war went on. Everybody who was worth anything
was doing something, and here she was doing nothing. What was there she
could do? This became the great question of her life. If I were about to
write out this story I would say something here about the workings of
her mind; but that is not necessary now. But her mind worked a great
deal, and the end of it was that she determined to be a nurse. Nursing,
indeed, is the only thing a young woman can do in a war.

"But when she began to make inquiries about army nurses--what they ought
to do, how they ought to do it, and all that--she ran up against that
terrible bugbear of control.