, shed her
faint benediction about her as she had done for a decade. There was a
sweetness in Miss Morgan's manner that made the old men gallant to her
in a boyish way; and the wives, who loved her, were proud of their
husbands' chivalry. During the evening at the Penningtons' the
conversation found much of its inspiration in the Memorial Day
services on the morrow and in anecdotes about the thriftlessness of
Calhoun Perkins. Memorial Day was one of the holidays which Miss
Morgan kept in her heart. Then she decorated each year a lover's
grave--a grave she had never seen. The day had been sacred in her
heart to the memory of a spring night, and the moon and the lilacs and
the blue uniform of a soldier. Upon other days she waved this memory
away with a gay little sigh, and would have none of it. But on
Memorial Day she bade the vision come into her heart and bide a while.

But she did not open the door there at the party. They said to one
another, going home that night: "Well, I don't see's she minds it a
bit. Isn't that pluck for you--not lonesome, not grumpy--just the same
little body she was when we first saw her. Well--I know one thing--I
couldn't do it."

As for Miss Morgan, while she was walking home that night, she was
thinking of the women of her age whom she had just left; the romance
seemed to be gone completely from their lives, their faces seemed a
trifle hard to her, and she was wondering if life would have gone so
with her if there had been no Shiloh.

The town clock in the schoolhouse was tolling eleven, as Miss Morgan
turned the key in the front door. The night was starry and inviting,
and as her house stood among the trees, somewhat back from the street,
Miss Morgan did not feel afraid to sit in a porch chair, refreshing
herself, before going indoors. The wind brought the odor of the lilacs
from the bush at the house corner, and the woman sat drinking in the
fragrance. She saw a pair of lovers strolling by, who did not observe
her. She could hear the murmur of their voices; she did not try to
catch their words. She sat silently dreaming and wondering. Again and
again her eyes went to the stars in a vain questioning, and her lips
moved. Maybe she was asking "where," maybe she was asking "why." As
the moments slipped by, the years fell away from her. She had carried
her little romance in her heart unsullied by reality. To-night the
talk of Memorial Day had brought it all back, and the thrill of other
da