t on the plain--and now it's all coming again!"

"Why, mother, you're very blue to-day!" said Marta.

"We have had these crises before. We--" Lanstron began, rallying her.

"Oh, yes, you have reason and argument," she parried gently. "I have
only my feelings. But it's in the air--yes, war is in the air, as it was
that other time. And I remember that young private, only a boy, who lay
crumpled up on the steps where he fell. I bandaged him myself and helped
to make his position easier. Yes, I almost lifted him in my arms" She
was looking at the flowers on the table but not seeing them. She was
seeing the face of the young private forty years ago.

"He asked me to bring him a rose. He said the smell of roses was so
sweet and he felt so faint. I brought him the rose--and he was dead!"

"Yes, yes!" Marta breathed. She, too, in her quick imagination, was
seeing the young private and spatters of blood on the terrace. Lanstron
feasted his eyes on her face, which mirrored her emotion.

"Oh, the groans of the dying in the night and the cheering when the news
of victory came in!" Mrs. Galland continued. "I could not cheer. But
that was, long, long ago--long ago, and yet only yesterday! And now we
are to have it all over again. The young men must have their turn. They
will not be satisfied by the experience of their fathers. Yes, all over
again; still more horrible--and it was horrible enough then! I used to
get giddy easily. I do yet. But I didn't faint--no, not once through the
days of nursing, the weeks of suspense. I wondered afterward how I could
have endured so much."

"Are we of the septicized-serum age equal to it?" Marta exclaimed.

"Yes, we of the matter-of-fact, automatic gun-recoil age!" put in
Lanstron.

"Oh, mother," Marta went on, "I wish you would go with me to the class
some morning, you who have seen and felt war, and tell it all as you saw
it to the children!"

"But," remonstrated Mrs. Galland, "I'm an old-fashioned woman; and,
Marta, your father was an officer, as your grandfather was, too. I am
sure he would not approve of your school, and I could do nothing against
his wishes."

She looked up with moistening eyes to a portrait on the opposite wall
over the seat which her husband had occupied at table. Lanstron saw
there a florid, jaunty gentleman in riding-habit, gloves on knee, crop
in hand. The spirit of the first Galland or of the stern grandfather on
the side wall--with Bluecher tufts in front