at twenty. But a more
leisurely gait is enjoyable and we can take time to look around at the
pleasant things; do the things we've always wanted to do--but didn't
have time to do. Brace must get married--he'll have children and
you'll begin all over with them. Then I'd like to take in some music
with you this winter. I've rather let my pet fads drop from sheer
loneliness. Let's go to light opera--we're all getting edgy over here.
I tell you, Helen, it's up to us older fry to steer the youngsters
away from what does not concern them."

Poor Manly! He could not deafen his conscience to the growing call
from afar and already he saw the trend. So he talked the more as one
does to keep his courage up in grave danger.

With his anxiety about Helen Northrup removed, Manly gave attention to
Brace. Brace puzzled him. He acknowledged that Northrup had never
looked better; the trip had done wonders for him. Yes; that was
it--something rather wonderful had been done.

He attacked Northrup one day in his sledge-hammer style.

"What in thunder has got mixed up in your personality?" he asked.

"Oh! I suppose anxiety about Mother, Manly. And the thought that I had
slipped from under my responsibilities. Had she died--well! it's all
right now."

But this did not satisfy Manly.

"Hang it all, I don't mean anxiety," he blurted out. "The natural
stuff I can estimate and label. But you look somehow as if you had
been switched off the side track to the main line."

"Or the other way about, old man?" Northrup broke in and laughed.

"No, sir; you're on the main line, all right; but you don't look as if
you knew where you were going. Keep the headlight on, Brace."

"Thanks, Manly; I do not fully understand just where I may land, but
I'm going slow. Now this--this horror across seas----" Always it was
creeping in, these days.

"Oh! that's their business, Northrup. They're always scrapping--this
isn't our war, old man," Manly broke in roughly, but Northrup shook
his head.

"Manly, I cannot look at it as a war--just a plain war, you know. I've
had a queer experience that I will tell you about some day, but it
convinced me that above all, and through all, there is a Power that
forces us, often against our best-laid plans, and I believe that Power
can force the world as well. Manly, take it from me, this is no scrap
over there, it's a soul-finder; a soul-creator, more like. Before we
get through, a good many nations and men will be co