"Yes, strange, perhaps, but it happens many times in the course of a life." He paused, then added hurriedly, "I suppose that in a few months you will be saying the same thing about me—'I used to see him every day, he was a part of my life, but now he is only in the background of my memory, and doesn't seem real.'"

There was a note almost of bitterness in Donald's voice; but Rose was too stunned by his words to notice or attempt to analyze the manner of their utterance.

"Donald, what ... what do you mean? You're not ..." She gasped, and laid her hand with an impulsive clutch on his arm.

"Look out! Don't interfere with the motorman," he laughed more naturally, as the car swerved almost into the curbing. "Yes, I am. I'm going away ... almost immediately."

"Away? Where?"

"To France."

"Oh, Don, you mustn't; you can't. You're needed here so much."

"They need me over there more, little Smiles. I've realized it, and felt the pull, for days; but it didn't become insistent until yesterday, when I received a letter from a chap whom I have known for years. He's always had a good deal more money than was good for him, and been a sort of social butterfly. I liked him, although I didn't believe that he had a serious thought in his head, didn't think that he was capable of one, but ... here, read what he has written me," he concluded abruptly, as a temporary block forced their car to a stop beneath an electric light on Massachusetts Avenue. "The first page doesn't matter; it merely contains a description of how he happened to be caught in Paris by the outbreak of the war, and got mixed up in volunteer rescue work through a spirit of adventure."

Rose turned to the second sheet and, holding the pages close to the glass in the door, through which came enough snow-filtered light to illumine them, read.

"I am beginning to understand, now, something of what you meant when you used to talk so enthusiastically about your confining, and, as it seemed to me, often thankless work. I never knew what real satisfaction was until I began to get mixed up with this volunteer Red Cross work. Coming from the source that it does, you will probably be surprised and amused at the statement that, when I look back on the old, superficial, utterly useless life that I formerly led, I actually thank God for the foolish whim that brought me to Paris in the fall, and the equally whimsical decision that led me to volunteer my services as an auto driver. The work has stirred something inside of me that I didn't know existed, and, if I come through this scrape (we're working in villages pretty close to the front a good deal of the time), I'll come home 'poorer, but wiser.' Yes, they've touched my pocketbook as well as my heart.

I suppose the papers give you some idea of conditions here; but no verbal description can begin to do it justice; the need is simply overwhelming and hourly growing greater. Think of it, old man, there are thousands upon thousands of babies and little kiddies of Belgium and northern France homeless, many of them orphaned, most of them sick and all helpless and with their lives—which have every right to be carefree and happy—filled with sorrow and suffering.

France has been glorious in the way she has met the staggering, almost insuperable difficulties which everywhere confront her, but how could she be expected to meet this incidental problem when she was so overburdened with the crushing pressure of the battle for her very existence. It has been a mighty lucky thing for her that the Red Cross was ready to take it off her shoulders, and she has turned to us (How does that sound? Can you imagine me doing anything useful?) with tears of appeal and gratitude. That isn't a figure of speech. I have actually seen the Prefect of this Province, who would rank with the governor of one of our states, and who is a brave, capable man, cry like a woman over the seeming hopelessness of the ghastly problem. I have heard him say that he—that France—was helpless, and beg us in the name of common humanity to do what we could.

Believe me, we're doing it, and I'm proud of my countrymen and women who have gone into this thing with the typical Yankee pep; proud of the American Red Cross and just a bit proud of myself. You used to make fun of my vaunted ability to stay up half the night, and be fresh as a daisy the next morning. It's serving me in good stead now. I can't begin to tell you about the work we have done already and are doing; it is a task to overwhelm the courage, but we are 'carrying on,' as the Tommies say.

New children, by the scores and hundreds, are brought into the hospital bases daily, and many of them have been living for weeks, and even months, filthy in cellars of Hun-shattered villages which are almost continually under fire. They are generally sick, naturally, indescribably dirty and, in fact, mere wraiths of childhood. God, Don, it gets me when I imagine my own nephews and nieces in their places!

We clean 'em up, give them help and something to live for. We have already established hospitals, schools and nurseries in —— and —— and our ambulances and 'traveling baths' go out daily to give aid to the less needy in the neighborhood. Can you picture me acting as chauffeur for a magnified bath tub for Belgian babies? That's what I'm doing, now!

Get into the game, old man. We need you over here, and the kids of the disgustingly rich at home will be the better for not having a doctor to give them a pill every time their little noses run a bit. Pack up your saws, axes and other trouble-makers in your old kit bag and climb aboard a ship bound for France."

Donald saw that there were tears in Smiles' deep eyes as she silently folded the pages, and replaced them in their envelope.

"Of course you ought to go," she said simply. "I spoke selfishly. But oh, Don, I don't know what I shall do without you; you're the only 'family' I've got. I don't see you very often; but I know that you are here in Boston, and I guess that I have got the habit of leaning on you in my thoughts. You know I called you a tree, years and years ago."

"Yes, I remember, an 'oak,' wasn't it? I thought that you meant that I was tough," he laughed. "The idea of you leaning on any one is funny, Rose." Then he added, with some hesitancy, "I've been thinking ... Would you like to go over there, too, Rose? I could take you ... that is, I am quite sure that I could arrange for you to do so, not as a Red Cross nurse, of course, for they have to be graduates; but as a volunteer helper in one of those base hospitals. It would be a wonderful experience, and you would be performing the kind of service that you like best. It would not be time wasted, by any means."

She started, and her lips parted eagerly; then the light slowly faded from her eyes and she shook her head slowly.

"I would love it. It would be glorious, Don, and I should be working with you, perhaps, but ... No, I must keep on doing as I have planned. I can't falter or fail now, Don. There is going to be greater need every day, not for helpers, but for trained workers. When this awful war is ended and the weary, weary world turns back to peaceful pursuits, its hope and salvation will lie in its babies. Won't it, Don? I would like to help those babies over in France; sometimes I dream of being a Red Cross nurse and helping the poor, wounded soldiers; but I am sure that it is better for me to keep on making myself ready to serve the coming generations to the best of my fully trained ability. Don't you think so, too, Don?"

Her words had rung firm and true until the last question, when there crept in a note which seemed to his ears to carry an appeal for him to disagree, and argue with her; but the man answered, "Yes, dear. You are dead right, and I felt certain that you would say what you have said. You have got to stay until you are trained; I have got to go, because I am. You see that, don't you?"

"Yes. Oh, I shall miss you awfully, Don; I can't tell you how much. But I want you to go. And I mean to pray for you, and the poor little babies over there, too. I'll write you as often as I can; as often as you want me to."

"That's fine," he answered heartily. "But, as I told you once before, don't feel hurt if I answer only occasionally. I have a suspicion that there will be plenty of work for me to do over there."

"Yes, I'll understand. Besides, you will have to write to ... to Miss Treville more than to me. Are you ... are you going to get married before you go?"

"Married? Good Lord, no ... that is, I hadn't even thought of it," he said with a forced laugh. "Why, I haven't even told her yet that I am going."

"You haven't? You told me, first?"

"Well ... er ... you see I had to tell you, because ... because I ... I hold a position of trust in respect to you, and have got to make arrangements for your future. Big Jerry told me to use my own judgment about your money, and I believe that you are fully competent to take care both of yourself and of it.

"Here," he drew a small package from his side pocket, "is a bank deposit and check book, for I have already had the account transferred from my name, as trustee, to you individually. Now it is up to you to prove that you are a careful little business woman. With more than a thousand dollars in the bank you may feel quite like an heiress, but I warn you that a big city is a glutton and its avaricious maw is always open for money. Be warned by one who knows. If you need any advice of any nature that a man can give better than Miss Merriman, I want you to promise to call on Phil ... Dr. Bentley, that is, for I mean to put you in his charge. You can trust him just as you do me."

"I know that," answered Rose frankly.

"Well, here we are, little sister. Don't tell any one what I have just told you, for I want to make all my preliminary arrangements before I astound the world with the announcement of what I am going to do."

"You needn't laugh," answered Rose. "I guess that it will dismay plenty of Back Bay families who have babies."

There was a catch in her voice as she bade him good-night, and she was not sorry for an excuse for running into the hospital, offered by the mellow notes of a distant church clock tolling the hour of ten. It was the signal for "lights out" in the bedrooms, and this was appreciated, too, for it made it possible for her to undress in the dark, and the pale moonlight which came in through the window, as the moon played hide and seek behind the broken masses of storm clouds—for the blizzard had ended as quickly as it had come on—was reflected on two glistening tear drops on her flushed cheeks. In the darkness her roommate could not see them and be led to ask questions.

The two girls, one the self-educated, unknown child of the southern mountain side, the other the college-bred daughter of one of New England's oldest families, had become fast friends and generally exchanged whispered confidences until the sleep which comes of physical exhaustion speedily claimed them; but to-night Rose was in no mood for conversation.

The last thread which bound the old life to the new was soon to be broken, and she felt lonelier, more nearly homesick, than she had since leaving Webb's Gap.

"Perhaps I shall never see him again," she half whispered. "But I shall never, never forget him, he has been so good and meant so much to me. And I shall always love him." She saw that her roommate was asleep, softly raised the window-shade to let in the moonlight that she loved, and, clad in her simple nightdress, short sleeved and cut low at the neck, seated herself before the mirror to brush her wavy mass of hair, and, as she leaned forward, and it fell about her face, tear bedewed and made almost childlike again by its frame of tumbling curls, she smiled faintly in recollection. "I look the way I used to in my homemade, one-piece dresses," she breathed. "Just as I did that afternoon when he first saw me. 'Yo' looked so funny a-fallin' over thet thar dawg, an' a-rollin' on the floor.' What a way to greet a famous physician—only I didn't know it then."

For a moment she sat like this, her thoughts far away from the northern city; then a faint blush mantled her face, and she hastily jumped up and shut out the soft light by pulling down the shade.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE GOAL

You cannot, by a bridge of sighs, attain the future's golden years, But try a bridge of rainbow hopes erected on substantial piers Of honest work, and you will find it leads you surely to the goal. 'Tis God that gives the dreamer's dreams, as radiant as the morning, But, if the will to work is weak, they often die a-borning.

If this were a romance, instead of the simple account of the pilgrimage and development of a girl from childhood to womanhood, it would be permissible to say, "three years pass by in swift flight," or "drag by on weary feet," as the case may have been, and then resume the action.

But in everyday life, character is built out of everyday incidents, big and little, all of which have place in the moulding of it, and, since the years of Smiles' training within the Children's Hospital were vital ones for her, it is essential to touch briefly upon some of the occurrences which filled them.

On the other hand, it is by no means necessary to describe that period at length. It is doubtful if, in later life, she will herself look back upon the many days so filled to repletion with exacting, though interesting, tasks, as other than a dead level, for constant repetition of a thing, no matter how gripping it may be, produces a monotony. But there were special incidents—sometimes trivial in comparison with the importance of her sustained labor—which formed the high lights in the picture, and the memory of which will endure through all the after years. By recounting a few of these, and letting our imaginations fill in the interims, we can accompany Rose on her journey to the goal of her desires.

* * * * *

The day after Donald had taken her into his confidence regarding his plans, Rose made up her mind to keep a diary.

"Even though he may be thousands of miles away, I mean to keep myself as close to him as possible by writing him as I would talk to him, about all the things which happen in my life, and, unless I set them down as they happen, I shall forget," she told Miss Merriman, after the seal of secrecy had been removed from her lips.

"Perhaps you can succeed in keeping one. I never could," laughed her friend. "Each January First I start a new one, and register a solemn vow to keep it up longer, at least, than I did the one the previous year. If I follow that system until I am three hundred and fifty years old, I will complete just one before I die."

Smiles accepted the implied challenge, and, day by day, with few omissions, the dated pages bore new testimony to her application in performing a self-appointed task. The plan bore fruit, too, for Donald, in his rare replies to her confidential letters, which went to him each fortnight, was able to praise her as the best of correspondents, writing once, "You have an exceptional gift for making incidents seem real and people alive, in your letters, and of realizing that, with us who are so far away from home, it is the little things which count. Ethel, alas, is hopeless in this respect. She writes me faithfully; but invariably says that nothing has happened except the usual occurrences of everyday life, and thereby utterly misses the great fact that it is just those very things that the lonely exile most longs to hear about. I would actually rather have her write that they had baked beans on Saturday night than that so-and-so had given a charity whist at the Vendome."

Yet many a sentence went into the diary that was never copied or embellished for Donald's eyes. Some of them had to do with him, or her thoughts of him; some were too intimate for another to see.

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December 6th, 1915.

"My dear Donald has gone. I think that I have not felt so utterly lonesome since granddaddy died. And I could not get away to say good-by to him—I could have cried, only I didn't have time even to do that. It doesn't seem right, when he has been so dear to me, that I should have had to part from him in the hospital corridor with others around, so that all I could do was press his hand an instant and wish him a commonplace, 'Good luck and God-speed.' Still, it probably wouldn't have been any different if we had been alone. I couldn't have done what my heart was longing to do, everything is different now. I don't believe that I enjoy being 'grown-up.' What an unpleasant thing 'convention' is. Why, I wonder, must we always hide our true feelings under a mask? I suppose it is lest the world give a wrong meaning to them; but if I had kissed him, the way I used to, I'm sure that Donald would have understood. He knows that I love him as dearly as though I were truly his sister, instead of a make-believe one."

Here the page bears a number of meaningless hieroglyphics, and then the words, stricken out, "I wonder."

"He looked so manly in his uniform, and so distinguished, although I suppose that he isn't really handsome—at least, not like Dr. Bentley. He isn't so wonderful as Don; but I think that he is more understanding. He seemed to realize just how I felt this morning, and he was as sweet and considerate as a woman when I bungled things awfully in the operating room. The head nurse gave me a deserved call down, however, and it was perhaps just as well that she did, for my mind needed to be 'brought back.' Only my body was in the hospital, and the real me, as Mr. Talmadge said, was back in the cabin, helping Donald operate on Lou, all over again. I cried like a little fool—the first time I have done it here—but my tears weren't for the poor baby on the operating table. They were memory tears....

"Poor little thing, he had to die, and he was the first one whom I have seen pass on to the eternal garden of God's flowers since I have been in the hospital. Oh, it hasn't been a happy day at all....

"I wonder if Donald could have saved him? My brain answers, 'No.' Dr. Bentley did all that lies within the power of science, I am sure. But somehow ..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Christmas night.

"If Donald might only have been here in person to-day, it would have been perfect. I think that he must have been, in spirit, for I 'felt' his presence quite near me several times; I confided as much to Dr. Bentley and he made an atrocious pun on the word 'presents.' I wish he wouldn't; it is the only thing about him that I don't like, but he will make them. Wasn't Donald thoughtful and dear to have bought a Christmas gift for me during those overcrowded days before he went away?—a whole set of books, beautifully bound, but better still, beautiful within. Books are the same as people, I think. We like to see both attractively clothed, but in each it is the soul that counts....

"What a lot of presents I received—from Miss Merriman and her mother, Mrs. Thayer and little Muriel, and, oh, so many of the girls here. I don't know why they are all so good to me—because I am looked upon as a lonely little savage, I suppose. And then there was that one from Dr. Bentley. The idea of a simple mountain girl from Webb's Gap having five whole pounds of candy at once!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The funniest thing happened to-day, and I must not forget to write Donald all about it. He is sure to remember little red-headed Jimmy, who has to spend so much of his time in the hospital. Has he imagination enough, I wonder, to picture him sitting up in bed in the snow-white ward, with his flaming auburn hair and bright red jacket calling names at each other? I love the old custom to which the hospital still clings of putting all the little patients into those red flannel jackets on cold days, for it makes the wards look so cheerful—like Christmas fields dotted with bright berries. Jimmy is a dear, and so imaginative that I believe he lives every story that I tell him of the Cumberlands—certainly he likes them better than fairy stories. This afternoon, I had finished telling him about how grandpappy shot the turkey for Dr. MacDonald, and I found him looking up at me with his big blue eyes, which can be as serious as a saint's or as mischievous as an imp's. 'Your face is most always laughing, Miss Webb,' said he. 'I think I shall have to call you Nurse Smiles.' My roommate, Miss Roberts, happened to be in the room and heard him, and now it's all over the hospital. Everybody is calling me it, unless the superintendent or some of the older doctors are around. How odd it is that he should have struck on it, and given me my old nickname again....

"Dr. Bentley called me Smiles when he left after his evening visit."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

May 17th, 1916.

"This has been a day of days for me. First I received a long and wonderful letter from Donald. It seemed like old times, for it was as kindly and simple, too, as those which he used to write to me at Webb's Gap. I wonder if he regards me as still a child? I suppose that I really am one, but somehow I feel very grown up, and much older than many of the girls who are years older than I. They constantly surprise me by acting so young when they are off duty ... but I love it in them.

"To-day I entered into the second year of my training. I wish that I had the power to set down on paper my feelings when I received that first narrow black band for my cap. I suppose that I had some of the same 'prideful' sensations that dear granddaddy did when he was very young, and cut the first notch in the stock of his rifle-gun. But how much better my notch is! It means that I am fast getting able to save lives, not to take them. I must always remember that—it will give a deeper meaning to the symbol. And now my room is going to be moved down a story—I'm so glad that Dorothy Roberts is to be with me still—and I can move in one table nearer the front wall in the dining room. That wall sometimes seems to me like a goal that I have got to reach before I will be safe, just as in a children's game of tag, and, when I get tired and discouraged—for I do, at times, little diary—it seems as though there were many, many things stretching out invisible hands to catch me before I get to it. Donald was right about the path being no road of roses.... Come, this will never do; I'm supposed to be happy to-night, and besides, now I've got to live up to my nickname again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I wonder how much I really have changed in the year? a good deal, I'm sure. I remember that at first I used to laugh to myself over the 'class distinctions,' such as I have just been writing about; that was when I was fresh from the mountain, where every one called every one else by his or her first name—and also when I was in the lowest class myself. Once I was even bold enough to tell Dr. Bentley that I thought they were foolish, but he reminded me—as Donald had—that we are an army here, and that in an army a private can't eat and sleep with a captain, or a captain with a general. Now I don't mind the rules and regulations at all, for I have learned the lesson of discipline, and I know that, even if we do have to be strict in our conduct toward the older nurses and the doctors, we are all—from the senior surgeon down to the lowliest probationer—really one in a great spiritual fellowship, as the prayerbook says, and all working together in the same great cause."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

August 19th, 1916.

"Little diary, I have been neglecting you lately, but now you and I must collect our thoughts, for we have got to write a long, long letter to Donald and tell him all about the vacation—the first that I ever had.

It was the first time that I was ever really at the seashore, too, except that one afternoon in June when Dr. Bentley took me down to Nahant in his car. Weren't the Thayers dear to have me as their guest at beautiful Manchester-by-the-Sea? Ethel (I wonder if Donald will be pleased to know that his real sister has asked me to call her by her first name?) insisted that they did it for my own sake, but I know that it was really on his account. They were two weeks of wonder for me; but I wish that he might have been there. How they all miss him—even Dr. Bentley. I think that there is nothing finer than such a friendship between two men. Why, he even calls on Donald's family still. He came to Manchester twice in the fortnight that I was there. Dr. Bentley wants me to call him 'Philip,' when we are not in the hospital, and I do ... sometimes. It seems perfectly natural, even though he is much older than I—he is over thirty; but I suppose that is because at home we called almost every one by his first name. (We are rambling, little diary. I don't believe that Donald would be particularly interested in the fact that I call Dr. Bentley, 'Philip.')

He will be interested to know how the sea impressed me, though, and again I find myself wholly at a loss for words to express my feelings. It was so overwhelming in its grandeur and far-stretching expanse; so beautiful in its never-ending procession of colors; so terrible in its might, when aroused. I have seen it asleep as peacefully as one of my babies (all the hospital babies are children of my heart), and I have seen it in anger, like a brutal giant. I wish that I had not seen its latter mood, for, when it caught up the little boat that had been torn from the moorings, and hurled her again and again against the rocks until there was not a plank of her left unbroken—while the wind shrieked its horrid glee—my growing love for it was turned to fear. No, I can never care for the ocean as I do for my mountains. I cannot forget that it was the waters which stole my dearest treasures from me.

Still, the memory of that storm is nearly lost in the abounding happiness of those two weeks, and the third one which I spent with my Gertrude Merriman, who stole it from her many cases to be with me. When I set down each little incident of them in black and white, as I mean to in my letter to Don, they will appear commonplace enough, I'm afraid; but I shall tell him that their story is written on my heart in letters of gold and many colors.

He pretends to be interested in every foolish little thing that I have done, but I don't suppose that he would care to read about all the new dresses I have bought. I never realized before that a girl could get so much pleasure out of buying pretty things, and I am afraid that he would scold me if he knew how many leaves I have used out of my checkbook. Not that they have been all for clothes, little diary. I did not realize how much I had given to war charities, and I was a little frightened this morning when I made up my balance.

But I cannot help giving for the poor French and Belgian babies. It somehow seems as though I were giving the money to Don to spend for me."

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There follow many entries, in the course of which the name of Donald appears, and many more in which that of Philip, from which one might reasonably draw the conclusion that the latter was conscientiously performing his part as ad interim guardian for Rose. There are also several mentions of impish, lovable Jimmy—he of the red hair, presumably—and of visits, on her afternoons off, to the cheap and somewhat squalid apartment where he lived with his thin, tired, but pitifully optimistic mother, and a stout, florid-faced father, who wore shabby, but very loud-checked, suits and was apparently a highly successful business man of big affairs, but frequently "temporarily out of funds." Indeed, it would seem as though there were times when the family—which included six other children from one to ten years old—would actually not have had enough to eat if Rose had not "loaned" the wherewithal to purchase it to the father of the household.

Under date of May 15th, 1916, appears the following.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Two black bands on the little white cap! One round table nearer the wall! Materia medica, orthopedia, medical analysis, general surgery, bacteriology, therapeutics and anaesthesia no longer mere words, whose very sound made me weak with dismay; but terms descriptive of new ways in which I can help weak and suffering babyhood. It has been hard, but soul-satisfying, work. I love it all, and have never regretted the decision made, centuries ago it seems, on the mountain. I have just been re-reading Donald's first letter to me—the one in which he frankly warned me of the hardships which would be mine to face, if I should attempt to carry out my plan. It was, I think, the only time that he was ever wrong ... no, I had forgotten that afternoon at Judd's still. Work may be hard, and yet entail no hardship, especially when it brings the satisfaction of winning against odds. I know that he did not really mean what he said in that letter. It was written merely as a test of my resolve; to deter me, if it wasn't strong enough to carry me through. There have been times when I have myself wondered if it would, but, thanks to dear old Mr. Talmadge, and his 'sermon on the mount' I have always been able to find the help that he told us about. I wonder if Donald has, too? Surely he must have, he has been doing such wonderful work 'over there.' It is like him to say so little about it in his letters, but Dr. Roland gave us a talk about what they have been doing in Toul and Leslie, when he returned from France, and he sang Donald's praises fortissimo. I was so happy, and so proud.

"They all tell me that the coming year is the hardest of all with its practical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in the Manhattan Maternity in New York. I have a feeling that I am not going to enjoy the former. Nursing 'grown-ups' does not appeal to me as the caring for the little flowers does. But I shall love the other. Motherhood is sacred and beautiful....

"I shall have to be very economical this year, little diary, and especially careful when I get to New York. When I paid the final installment on my tuition fee, I was frightened to find how little remained of what granddaddy left me, and what I had saved, myself. Nearly thirteen hundred dollars looked like a huge fortune to me in those days, but it is nothing at all in a city, where there is so much poverty, and there are so many appeals to one's heart. I know that Donald—or Philip—would lend me a little money until the time when I get to earning it for myself, if I should ask them. But of course I cannot do that. Perhaps I can earn a little during my afternoons and evenings off duty. The girls say that I can shampoo and manicure as well as a professional. Yes, I will try to do that this year."

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January 15th, 1917.

"Thank goodness my worries about finances are almost over!

"The last few months have been simply terrible, and the hardest part of all, I think, has been my not being able to give anything to the number of splendid causes which so touch the sympathies these dark days. Perhaps I gave too much before; but I am not a bit sorry, especially now that some of the seed which I cast upon the waters is soon to bear golden fruit for me. I never believe the pessimistic people who say that those who receive charity are never really grateful, and now I know that they are wrong. Jimmy's father has been so appreciative of my pitifully small presents to them, that sometimes he has cried over them, and I knew that he was in earnest when he promised to repay me as soon as he possibly could. Now the chance has come. I was there yesterday and he said that he had been thinking about me just before I appeared.

"It seems that he sells stock, and has just obtained a wonderful position as agent, or whatever they call it, for a new copper mine which he says is better than the 'Calumet and Hecla.'

"He explained to me all about that one and showed me in the paper how high it was selling now—for $550 a share. He is the sole representative for all of New England, and he says that the company is at present selling its stock only to special friends in order to 'let them in on the ground floor.' The shares are only ten dollars apiece and are sure to be worth a hundred, or more, very soon, because of the war. It seems almost impossible! I told him that I had only about a hundred dollars in the world, but that, if he really felt that he wanted to do me a favor, I might 'invest' it (that word sounds quite impressive, doesn't it?) but that I should have to think it over, first. I remembered what Donald had told me about asking a man's advice—especially Philip's—in money matters. Perhaps it would have been wiser if I had done so before.

"I asked him this afternoon if he knew anything about the King Kopper Kompany, and he said that it was a 'get rich proposition' and that he had sunk a good deal of his own money into some just like it. I wanted to ask him more, but we were interrupted. However, I know that he is very well-to-do, so he must have made money in them and certainly I need to get rich quick. I'm going to make the investment to-morrow."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

March 11th.

"Stung! I hate slang, but sometimes nothing else is quite so expressive. I thought that I was getting to be very wise, but, oh, what a little ignoramus I have been. And to think that I thought I was following Philip's advice, and did not realize what he really meant until I read a story about a man who was called 'Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.' Now I'd rather die than tell him that I have lost practically all of my worldly goods!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Finally, late in May, is an entry, longer than any of its predecessors, and the last for many a day. Rose made it seated in the soft moonlight which came through the window of her hospital room, after her roommate had fallen asleep.

"I am in a strange mood to-night, little diary, and not quite sure whether I want to laugh or cry—indeed, I think that my heart has done both to-day. I don't feel like going to sleep, but perhaps I will be able to if I get the many thoughts out of my mind and down on paper—now they are like so many little imps beating against my brain with hammers.

"Surely I should be happy at the thought that to-morrow is to carry me to my goal at the top of the mountain path which Donald described. In twelve hours I shall (D. V.) be a graduate nurse; but, now that the journey is almost an accomplished fact, I positively shiver when I think of the nerve of that child who was I five years ago and who, blessed with ignorance, made up her mind to become one, or 'bust'—that is the way I put it, then. Friends have sometimes told me that they didn't see how I had the courage to attempt it; but I tell them, truthfully, that it isn't courage when one tackles a thing which she—or he—doesn't know is difficult to do, and that few things are insurmountably difficult which she tackles with confidence (which is as often the result of ignorance as of faith in one's own power). So how can I take any credit for succeeding?

"It has been hard work, of course, and I know that I must have failed if every one had not been so good to me, and, above all, if God had not meant me to succeed. I have never forgotten that night when the 'reverend' opened my eyes to the knowledge that I am His partner in working out my life. Dear Mr. Talmadge! I am ashamed that I stopped writing to him, so long ago, yet I know that he is still my friend, although we do not see each other. That is the beauty of true friendship—it is a calm and constant star, always in its place against the time when we want to lift our eyes to seek its light. I know that it is the same with Donald.

"When I think of him to-night, and realize that he cannot be near me in my little hour of triumph to-morrow, it is hard for me to keep back the tears. Dear God, bless him and bring him happiness—with Miss Treville.

"I cannot help feeling worried about Donald, for, although his letter makes light of his illness, I have a troublesome presentiment that he is worse than he will acknowledge. He is the kind to spend every ounce of his wonderful vitality without thought of self, and the two and a half years during which he has been laboring so hard, and so effectively, must have drained even his great strength. Slight, wiry people are like the willows that bend easily, but return to normal quickly, after the stress of storm has ended; but, when big ones—like Donald—break, it is like the fall of a mighty oak.

"Still, this cloud, like all clouds, has its bright lining. He is coming home, just as soon as he is able to make the trip, so, although I shall miss him dreadfully to-morrow, it will not be many weeks before I shall see him again.

"But this is not all that is troubling me, diary, and if I were not quite sure that no one but I would ever look inside your covers, I would not confide it even to you.

"I have a present, a wonderful present,—and I do not think that I ought to keep it. Help me make up my mind. When P. gave it to me this afternoon, he said that it was just a little remembrance for my graduation and that he hoped I would accept it as the gift of a semiofficial guardian, just as I would if Donald himself were giving it to me. I did take it in that spirit; but, when I found a moment to steal away and open the wrapper, and beheld a beautiful morocco case containing a gold watch with my initials engraved on the case, my heart almost stopped beating. This was his 'little remembrance.' Of course it is something that I shall need in my work, for it has a second hand, but he must have guessed that I would be troubled by such an expensive gift, for he tried to make light of it by enclosing a foolish little rhyme, which I must copy so that I shall not forget it.

'When it is time to take hour pulse You'll find a use for what is in it,[A] (On second thoughts, I'd like to add I wish you'd take mine every minute.)'

"Conventions are so puzzling, little diary, that I don't know what I ought to do. Somehow, I feel quite sure that the Superintendent wouldn't approve, for a doctor should not be making presents to a pupil nurse; yet P. has been so kind that I hate to think of hurting his feelings by giving it back. Besides, I love it ... and it is engraved R. W. Then, too, if I should return it, he might think that I didn't credit him with having done it while acting in Donald's place as my guardian, and if it was not that thought which prompted him, why ... Oh, I don't know what to do!

"Worse still, Dorothy Roberts came up unexpectedly and saw the watch. Of course she wanted to know from whom it came and I answered, on the impulse, 'From my guardian.' I'm sure that she believes that it was a present from Donald and therefore perfectly proper, for I have told her all about his relationship to me, and it hurts me to think that I have been guilty of a lie. Of course it wasn't one in actual words, perhaps; but I had the spirit to deceive, and now I can't confess without involving P. and she might think that he is in ... Oh, I can't write it, for of course he isn't. How could he be? No, it was just a natural act of his generous heart, because he knew that I was without relatives to give me a graduation gift.

"I hope that I sleep my uncertainties away, for to-morrow must hold nothing but sunshine and smiles."

[Footnote A: Poetical license—meaning 'what is in the box.']



CHAPTER XXVIII

"BUT A ROSE HAS THORNS"

The May day, the day of fulfilment for Smiles' dreams and the fruition of her work, had come. Her healthy, mountain-bred body had enabled her to keep well and strong; she had gone through the full three years with scarcely a day's illness, and she was ready to graduate with the class, some of whom would have to stay longer to make up time lost by illness.

Rose awoke early to a sense of something unusual in prospect. On the window of her room the rain was pattering merrily. All nature was one to her, and she loved the showers as much as the sunshine, but, when she began to realize what day it was, they brought a feeling of vague disappointment. Surely this day, which meant so much in her life, might have dawned fair! The glimpse of a leaden sky colored her thoughts for a moment, as she lay still in the drowsy relaxation of half-awakening, when dreams beckon from dolce far niente land, and the whispering voice of slumber mingles with the more stirring call of the brain to be up and doing. The recollection that Donald was far away, and could not be with her to witness her triumph, brought a sense of bitter disappointment to her over again. "I must write him everything that happens to-day. He will be happy in my happiness, I know," she murmured, half aloud, and her roommate awoke and answered with a sleepy, "What, dear?"

"Nothing. I guess that I must have been talking in my sleep," laughed Rose, as she now sat up energetically, fully awake. By their own request Dorothy Roberts and she still occupied one of the few double rooms reserved for third-year student nurses, who preferred to share their quarters.

The other followed, more drowsily.

"Look," called Rose, from the window. "It's going to clear. Oh, see that wonderful rainbow. I don't believe I ever saw one in the morning before."

"'Rainbow at morning, sailors take warning,'" quoted Dorothy.

"I don't believe in that, or any other unpleasant 'stupidstition'—as my reverend used to call them," Rose retorted, as she hastily began to dress, for the last time, in the blue striped costume which had been hers for nearly three years, but was, in a few hours, to change to one pure white, like a sombre chrysalis to a radiant butterfly. "No matter when a rainbow appears it is always an omen of fair promise. It's Mother Nature smiling through her tears."

She caught, in the mirror, a reflection of her friend's affectionate glance; her own cheek began to dimple and her lips to curve as she said, "I can tell by your expression just what you're going to say, and...."

"Egoist," mocked the other. "I hadn't the slightest idea of comparing your own smile to a rainbow, so now."

"I can't help it, really." Rose spoke with unfeigned distress in her voice, and began angrily to massage the corners of her mouth downward. "There's something wrong with the muscles of my face, I think, and sometimes I get worried for fear people will think that it's affectation. I get frightfully tired of seeing a perpetually forced grin on other faces—it reminds me of Mr. William Shakespeare's remark that 'a man may smile and be a villain still.'"

"Not with your kind, dear. 'There's a painted smile on the lip that lies, when the villain plays his part; and the smile in the depths of the honest eyes—and this is the smile of the heart.'"

"Or of the cheerful idiot," supplemented Rose. "Do you really think that I'm ... shallow? Sometimes it seems to me that the truly wise, thoughtful people, who search the deeps of life and are themselves strongly stirred, are always serious looking."

"Pooh. It's generally pose, and a much easier one to get away with. I always discount it about ninety-nine per cent."

"But, at least, others must think that I am always happy, and I'm not—sometimes I wish that I might be; but not often, for one would have to be utterly selfish and unsympathetic in order to be so, when there is so much suffering everywhere."

"I know, and feel the same way, Rose. But it seems to me that a smile—at least one like yours—isn't so much the visible expression of joy, as it is a symbol of cheer for others ... like a rainbow. There, I vowed that I wouldn't, and now I've 'gone and went and done it.'"

Miss Roberts spoke lightly, to cover a suspicious huskiness in her voice, for she worshipped the girl who had been so close to her for three years, and whose way and hers would necessarily diverge after that morning.

"Don't you dare to forget how to smile. We all love it," she added, with an assumption of a bullying tone; and then the two held each other very close and laughed and cried, both together, for a moment. They finished dressing in unusual silence, for the thoughts of each were busy with the things which the day and the future might bring forth for them.

Contrary to custom, Dorothy finished first, and preceded Rose downstairs.

When the latter reached the little assembly room, she found a small group of pupil nurses standing in the doorway. One was reading something from a page of a sensational afternoon newspaper, dated the day previous, and, as Smiles joined them, she hastily slipped it out of sight behind her. All of them appeared so self-conscious, that the new arrival stopped with a queer tightening about her heart.

"Show it to her," said Dorothy, quietly. "She's bound to hear of it sooner or later."

The sinking sensation within Rose's breast increased, and she stepped forward, saying faintly, "What is it, Dolly? Not ... not Dr. MacDonald? Nothing has happened ...?"

"No, dear. That is ... well, it concerns him; but I think that, if anything, he is to be congratulated. It is something to find out.... Here, read it yourself."

She took the paper from the owner, and handed it to Rose.

It was the page devoted to happenings in society, and from the top centre looked forth a two-column cut of Marion Treville's strikingly beautiful face. Beneath was a stick of text, which read:

"Back Bay society is buzzing with the rumor, which comes from an apparently unimpeachable source, that the beautiful Miss Treville of Beacon Street, who, since her debut seven years ago, has been one of the leaders of Boston's smartest set, is about to announce her engagement to Stanley Everts Vandermeer, the well-known New York millionaire sportsman. Miss Treville was formerly betrothed to Dr. Donald MacDonald, the famous children's specialist of this city, who has been in France for more than two years. No previous intimation had been given that this engagement had been broken."

Rose read the brief article twice, mechanically, and almost without understanding. Then a wave of hot anger, akin to that which had possessed her on the mountain on the afternoon when her eyes had first been opened to the duplicity of human nature, swept over her. It was only by a strong effort that she refrained from crushing the sheet, and speaking aloud her denunciation of the woman whose behavior so outraged her sense of justice.



The call came for the morning prayer, and she handed the paper back without a word; but for once the simple exercises, which, on this morning, should have meant so much more than usual, wholly failed to bring their customary peace. Her lips formed the words of the prayer, and joined in the singing of the hymn, but her mind was far away in France, and her heart rebellious within her.

Her thoughts did not harbor a doubt of Donald's love for the woman, who, it was said on "apparently unimpeachable" authority, had now discarded him for another and wealthier suitor. To be sure, he had not married her, as he might have, before he went away; but this was not strange, under the conditions; indeed, she thought it to his credit, since he had left to be away so long in the performance of a hard and hazardous duty. And surely Donald had remained true! Anything else was unthinkable, and, besides, Ethel often spoke of her sister-in-law-to-be, and of the marriage which would quickly follow her brother's return. That Miss Treville had apparently remained so faithful, also, had helped to banish some of Smiles' uncertain feelings concerning her, and she had begun to hope that some day she might succeed in finding the key to the city woman's heart and enter the fold of her friendship, for she could not bear the idea that Donald's marriage might result in Donald's being estranged from her, or cause a break in their wonderful friendship. Now her thoughts railed against the woman who had been so unstable, at a time when keeping faith with those who went, perhaps to die, had become a nation's watchword. This thought completely superseded the one that had sometimes been hers—that the woman was not worthy the love of the man whom she, herself, worshipped. It was like a mother, suffering for her hurt child, and her lips quivered with suppressed hate. It passed, and left her almost frightened.

"I guess that I'm still a mountaineer at heart," she whispered, as she mechanically bowed her head with the others. "I almost feel as though I could kill her. Poor Donald! He has always been so blindly trusting where his heart was concerned.... Perhaps Dorothy is right, perhaps he is better off, if it is true; but if this embitters him, if it spoils his faith in womankind, I shall hate her as long as I live." Then came the reflection that the report might not be true. "I shall go and ask her, myself, this afternoon!"

Smiles arose from her knees, aged in soul.

She had looked forward to this morning with all the eager anticipation of a child; but now, as she donned the white uniform of a graduate nurse—the costume which represented the full attainment of the hard-won goal,—no smile greeted her as she looked at her own reflection in the glass.

"Donald was right," she murmured. "I am just beginning to realize that even this fulfilment of my dream is not going to bring me happiness. It is born of the heart, or not at all." And her mind travelled back to the letter which she had tearfully penned him after Big Jerry's death. "Things never happen just as we plan. When we look forward to something pleasant which we want very much to happen, we never stop to think that there may be unhappiness mixed with it." A solitary tear ran down her cheek, and made a moist spot on the front of her new uniform.

The smile, usually spontaneous, had to be forced to her lips when she went to take her place, with the score of other happy graduating nurses, in the amphitheatre of the Harvard Medical School, next door, where the exercises were to be held.

"What is the matter with my Rose?" wondered Miss Merriman, who had managed to be present. And, "What is the matter with my Rose?" thought Dr. Bentley. He had seen her for just a moment that morning, and, through the warm, lingering pressure of her hand, received the thanks which she could not speak.

It was, in truth, a very sober Smiles who only half-heard the words of the impressively simple exercises, during which the newly made laborers in the Lord's vineyard received the diplomas which bore the seal of the hospital—a Madonna-like nurse, holding a child. Its original, cast in bronze—the work of a famous modern sculptor—hung in the administration building of the hospital, and she had often stood before it with tender dreams. And it was a very sober Smiles upon whose dress was pinned the blue and gold cross, the emblem alike of achievement and service.

Miss Merriman spoke her thought aloud, as she took the girl into her arms, afterwards. "You looked too sweet for words, dear. But, tell me, why that woe-begone expression on this, of all days? One would think that all the worries of the world lay on your young heart."

"Perhaps they do," was the non-committal answer. And Rose pleaded a previous engagement when the older nurse begged her company for the afternoon, and Dr. Bentley for the evening.

The happy laughter, the parting words, both grave and gay, which were spoken by those who had been her companions during the long journey, fell on ears which heard, but transmitted them to her mind vaguely, and her answers were inconsequential, so much so, that more than one friend regarded her with troubled surprise and whispered to another that Rose was either not well, or was dazed with happiness. And when Dorothy ventured to hint at the latter alternative, the girl acknowledged it with a strained imitation of her usual smile, and straightway found her thoughts scourging her because of this new deception.

It seemed to her that the day, for which she had builded so long, was tumbling about its foundations, and yet, when she now and again brought her runaway thoughts up with a round turn, she could not assign any logical reason for her feeling as she did.

"After all, what is it to me?" she would ask herself, logically, one moment. And at the next her heart would reply, "Everything. He is all that you have in the world in the way of 'family,' for he is more than friend to you." "Yes," Rose would admit, "I am afraid for him, I could not be more so if he were really my brother. She isn't worthy of him—I've known that, somehow, since the first day that he tried to tell me about her. But that isn't the point. Love is blind, and, if her faithlessness hurts him, I will hate her always. I hate her now. She has spoiled my day, and I know that I have hurt Gertrude and Philip, for they can't understand what the trouble is."

The idea passed over and over through the endless labyrinth of her brain and found no escape, while she ate the noonday meal, and later changed from her white uniform to a plain blue serge walking dress, and black sailor hat. Ever with it went the accompanying thought, "I must see her." To what end she did not know or seriously attempt to analyze. Rose was not the first to take up cudgels in a lost cause, spurred thereto by a purpose which was incapable of receiving any logical explanation. It was the "mother spirit," fighting for its own.

* * * * *

A maid opened the door on Beacon street in response to her ring, and, on entering the hall, Rose found herself face to face with Marion Treville. She was clad for the street and was at that moment in the act of buttoning a long white glove. As she recognized the visitor, a deep flush mounted quickly on the patrician face of the older woman and, for an instant, her teeth caught her lower lip.

Smiles' face was very pale, so pale that her large eyes by contrast appeared almost startling in their depth and color. There was a gossamer film of dust on her shoes and the bottom of her skirt, for she had walked all the way from the hospital, and she realized this fact with a sense of chagrin, when she saw Miss Treville's eyes travel to her feet, and mentally contrasted her own appearance with that of the perfectly appointed daughter of wealth before her.

Neither spoke for an instant. It was as though each were trying to read the thoughts of the other. Then Miss Treville said in a cool, even tone, "You may go, Louise."

The maid vanished silently, with one curious backward glance as she passed through the door at the end of the hallway.

"Miss ... Webb, isn't it? You wished to see ...?"

"Tell me that it isn't true," broke in Rose, her voice trembling a little in spite of her effort at self-control.

"Tell you it isn't ... true?" echoed the other, with lifted eyebrows. "I'm afraid that I don't quite underst ..."

"But you do understand, Miss Treville, why do you say that you don't? It is in the paper."

"Perhaps I meant to say that I do not understand why you should come here to ask such a question, Miss Webb," was the icy response.

Rose was silent. What answer could she make to this pertinent question? She felt the hot tears starting to her eyes; but, even as she was on the point of turning toward the door, with a little choked sob of bitter chagrin, the other continued. Curiosity had unloosed her tongue.

"Well? May I be so bold as to inquire what interest you may have in my personal affairs, Miss Webb? Frankly, I am at a loss to understand the meaning of this unexpected, and—I might say—somewhat unusual visit."

"I ... I don't know as I can explain," began Rose, hesitantly. "I ... I felt that I had to see you, because ... I had a letter yesterday from ... from Dr. MacDonald...."

"Ah."

"Of course he writes to me, you know that he is my guardian," she answered the interruption with a flash of spirit. "He said in it that he was coming home just as soon as he was able to ... to get well and ... be married, and then that paper.... Oh, Miss Treville, surely it isn't so. You wouldn't throw him over, when he is so far away, and ... and sick?"

The other's voice was not quite as steady as before, when she answered, "I don't see why I am called upon to explain my ... to explain anything to you, Miss Webb."

"Then it is true." The sentence rang out sharply. "And he doesn't know. He thinks that you are waiting, and ..."

"We need not discuss the matter, in fact I doubt if the doctor would appreciate your ... shall we say 'championage'? The matter is between him and me, wholly."

"No, it is not, Miss Treville," flared Rose, with the angry color at last flooding her cheeks. "I have heard people say that, if that story is true, he is lucky to have escaped marrying you; but, just the same, those of us who really love him—you needn't look like that, of course I love him—don't want to have him hurt, as any man would be who was cast off like an old glove while he was far away and had no chance to speak for himself. That is why I hoped it wasn't true, and that you hadn't, perhaps, killed his faith in my kind. And that is the only reason."

Once started, her words had poured out as hot as lava which had broken from a pent-up volcano.

"So, that is the reason, the only reason, for your coming to me with your impertinent question?" Miss Treville laughed oddly. "Really! Do you know, I have always suspected that the little savage whom he brought from somewhere in the backwoods regarded him as rather more than a guardian, or a brother ... that was the pretty fiction, wasn't it?" she added, with honey coating the vinegar in her speech.

Under the lash of the words Rose grew white again. Her hands clenched; but, before she could answer, Miss Treville continued:

"It really seems to me that you ought to thank me for stepping aside so obligingly."

The occupation of a high level in the civilized world, or in society, is no proof of the Christian virtue of self-control,—that has been demonstrated, in the case of a nation, all too clearly these last years; and individuals are like nations, or vice versa. The feline that lies dormant, as often in the finished product of city convention as in the breast of the primeval woman, was now thrusting out its claws from the soft paws of breeding. And Miss Marion Treville, leader of Back Bay society, was rather enjoying the sensation. She had passed not a few uncomfortable hours in company with her conscience, even while she was yielding to the glamorous flame which surrounded her new suitor. It was a real relief for her to be able to "take it out" on some one else, and a victim had offered herself for the sacrifice, most opportunely.

Rose shrank back as though she had been struck; then steadied herself and said with an effort—for her throat and lips were dry, "I think that perhaps you were right when you called me a 'little savage.' I know that I feel like one in my heart now, and I think, too, that it would be a real pleasure for me to ... to ..."

The other stepped hastily back, and Rose laughed, bitterly.

"Oh, please don't be frightened, I'm not going to scratch you. We wood people don't fight with your kind of animal, they're too unpleasant at close range." She paused, and then went on more steadily. "I came here ... I didn't know just why I was coming,—perhaps to plead with you for Donald's sake. That doesn't look much as though I loved him ... in the way you insinuate, does it? No, if I had, I should have won him away from you, long ago. It would not have been difficult, I think."

She spoke so coolly, and with such perfect confidence, that the other winced.

"There isn't anything more to be said, is there?"

Was this the simple mountain girl, whose voice was now so suave and who was smiling so icily?

There was a pause, during which Miss Treville's trembling hand sought behind her and found the servants' bell cord.

"I am really glad that I called, Miss Treville, for you have succeeded in convincing me that I have no occasion to be disturbed—on Donald's account."

"Miss Webb is going," said Miss Treville, formally, as the maid appeared.



CHAPTER XXIX

AN INTERLUDE

All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly. To each other linked are That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling a star.

A. QUILLER-COUCH.

Life is so largely a thing of intermingling currents, of interwoven threads, of reacting forces, that it is well-nigh impossible understandingly to portray the life story of one person without occasionally pausing to review, at least briefly, incidents in the lives of others with which it is closely bound up.

So it is with the story of the pilgrimage of Smiles.

While, following her graduation, she was taking a course in district nursing, giving freely of her new powers to the poor and suffering of a great city, and taking, and passing, the State examination which gave her the right to place the epigrammatic letters "R.N." after her name, something was happening more than three thousand miles away, of which she had no inkling, and yet which was closely linked with her existence.

Donald had, indeed, written in a manner to minimize his illness, which had been a prolonged and serious one; so much so that he had, greatly against his will, finally come to realize the necessity of his taking a rest from his unremitting toil, and he had agreed to return home for a vacation as soon as he should be well enough to make the long trip.

Depressed by his wholly unaccustomed weakness the doctor sat, a convalescent in his own hospital in Toul, one stifling July day. To his physical debility was added the dragging distress of mind which comes at times to those who are far away and receive no word from home. No letters had reached him for weeks. Removed from the sphere of the abnormal activity which had been his, and with nothing to do but sit and think, Donald had, for some time, been examining his own heart with an introspective gaze more searching than ever before. He felt that he had been, above the average, blessed with happy relationships, deep friendships and a highly trained ability to serve others—and he knew that he could honestly say that he had turned this to full account.

Besides, he was betrothed to a beautiful woman whom many coveted. When his mind reached Marion Treville in its consideration, it stopped to build a dream castle around her, a castle not in Spain, but in America. He had earned the right to rest beside the road awhile, and enjoy the good things of life. Marion was waiting for him at home, and whatever doubts had, at one or another time, entered his mind as to their perfect suitability, one for the other, they had long since been banished. Distance had lent its enchantment, and he had supplied her with the special virtues that he desired. His was a type of mind which held to one thought at a time, and he had always possessed a fixedness of purpose of a kind well calculated to carry through any plan which that mind conceived. Combined, these characteristics made a form of egotism, not one which caused him to overrate himself, but to plough ahead regardless of the strength of the possible opposition. When he returned to America he would marry Marion Treville immediately. No other idea had seriously entered his mind since they had plighted their troth; they had not been quite ready before, that was all, he told himself.

It was in such a frame of mind, and with a growing eagerness for the day when he might start for home to claim his reward, that he received her long-delayed letter. What it said does not matter; but one paragraph summed up her whole confession. "You cannot but agree with me that ours was never the love of a man and woman whose hearts were attuned to one another, and sang in perfect unison. We really drifted into an engagement more because of propinquity than anything else. I am a drone—the product of society at its worst—and you are one of the workers, Donald. I feel quite sure that you will always gain your truest happiness in your work. Although I know how you love children (and I don't), I cannot think of you in the role of a married man, so I do not, deep in my heart, believe that this is going to hurt you very much—certainly I hope not. Indeed, I have a somewhat unpleasant suspicion that some day you are going to bless me for having given you back your freedom."

Donald read the letter through, without allowing his expression to change. Then he started to reread it, stopped, and suddenly crumpled it up in his big fist. A low curse escaped his lips. It was heard by a passing nurse, who hurried to him with the question, "Did you call, doctor? Are you in pain?"

"No. Let me alone," was his harsh answer, and the patient girl moved away, with a little shake of her head. The great physician had not been his cheerful, kindly self for some time. Perhaps she surmised, too, that the mail which she had laid in his lap had not been all that he had anticipated.

With scarcely a move, he sat, staring in front of him, until the evening shadows had turned the landscape to a dull monotone. Then he slowly arose, and, with his mind so completely bent upon one subject that his body was a thing apart and its weakness forgotten, stepped out into the darkening city.

Time had ceased to exist for him, as he walked the almost deserted streets of Toul like a flesh-and-blood automaton. But the physical exercise brought a quota of mental relief at last, and the cool night air soothed his first burning pain and anger with its unconscious balm. At length he was able to face the truth frankly, and then he suddenly knew that all the time it was not his heart, so much as his pride, which had been hurt.

An hour earlier he would not have admitted a single doubt of his real love for Marion Treville. Now he could not but admit that the initial stab of bitterness was being healed by a real, though inexplicable, sense of relief. He could even say that she had been right. His affection for her had, indeed, been merely the outgrowth of life-long intimacy. It was never the mating call of heart to heart; he had never felt for her the overwhelming passion of a lover for the woman in whom, for him, all earthly things are bound up.

His walk became slower; he stopped. The deep blue-black sky had, of a sudden, become the background for a softly glowing mind picture, and there seemed to appear before him the glorious misty eyes, and bewitchingly curved lips of ... Smiles.

Her memory swept over him like a vision, and, even while he felt like a traitor to self, came the wonderful realization that in his home city, toward which his thoughts had so lately been bent, still lived the girl whom he had loved—and had held apart within a locked and closely guarded chamber of his heart—for years. It was as though scales, placed before them by his own will, had dropped from his eyes. He almost cried aloud his self-admission that he had loved her all the years from the first moment when he saw her, a barefoot mountain girl, in Big Jerry's rude cabin.

And he was free! Free to be honest with his own soul, free to tell his Rose of his love, and throw aside the masquerading cloak of adopted brotherhood. How strange it was! The woman whom he had thought to marry was gone from his life like a leaf torn from the binding, and the one whom he had pretended to regard as a sister would become his mate. That such would be the case he did not doubt now, even for an instant. That she had always loved him, he was certain, and, with the warmth of his wooing, he would fan that steady glow of childish affection into the flame of womanly love which should weld their hearts together forever.

* * * * *

The days which followed before he was strong enough to journey to Bordeaux, there to embark for America, seemed to drag by like eternity; but Donald was Westbound at last. He was going home, home to a new life, made perfect by a great love. The deadly submarines of the world's outlaw, lurking under the sea like loathsome phantasies of an evil mind, held no terrors for him, nor could the discomforts caused by the tightly closed hatches and enshrouding burlap, which made the ship a pent-up steambox, until the danger zone was passed, depress his spirits.

The steamer crept as had the days on shore; but there came an afternoon when she made port at last, and, spurred by a consuming eagerness, he hastened to his apartment.

He had cabled the news of his departure, and in the mail box were many letters awaiting him. Feverishly, he looked them over for one in her dear handwriting. To his unreasonable disappointment there was none, but there were several which required immediate reading—among them one from his sister Ethel, and one from his old friend, Philip Bentley.

The first contained disquieting news. His little niece, Muriel, had been very ill with typhoid fever and, although Dr. Bentley had pulled her through the sickness successfully, she was still far from well, and apparently not gaining at all.

He opened the other, expecting it to concern the case. But the note did not mention it. It was only a few lines and read:

"Dear old Don:

I hear that you are 'homeward bound.' Bully! As soon as you reach Boston, and can spare me a moment, I want to talk to you about an important matter.

Call me by telephone, like a good fellow, and I'll run over to your apartment at once and tell you what is on my mind.

Yours, P. B."



CHAPTER XXX

DONALD'S HOMECOMING

"By the Lord Harry, but I'm glad to see you back again, safe and sound, you good-for-nothing old reprobate."

True to his written statement, Philip had come to Donald's apartment as fast as a taxicab could bring him, after he had heard his old friend's voice over the wire. Now the two men gripped hands, hard, and then—for just a moment—flung their arms around each other's shoulders in a rare outward display of their deep mutual affection.

Then Philip held his senior away at arms' length and said, with masculine candor but with a look of sympathy in his eyes, "Don, you poor devil, you've been killing yourself over there. Don't tell me. I've a mind to appoint myself your physician and order you to bed for a month."

"Good Lord, do I look as bad as that?" laughed the other. "If I do, looks are deceitful, for I feel fit as a fiddle. I need only one thing to make a complete new man of me."

"And that is ...?"

"A secret, at present."

The two seated themselves opposite each other, and Philip continued, "I've managed to keep myself pretty well posted on the work that you've been doing, without knowing any of the details of your life—you're a rotten correspondent. Come, did you have any 'hairbreadth' 'scapes or moving accidents by field and flood?"

"Nary one. My life has been one dead, monotonous waste."

"Like ... the deuce it has. Come, I've got just ten minutes to stay; tell me the whole detailed history of your two years and a half. Knowing your natural verbosity, I should say that it would take you just about half that time, which will leave me the balance for my own few remarks."

"Five minutes? I could tell you the whole history of my life in that time. But, before I start, I want to ask you about my little niece, Muriel? I've just been reading a letter from Ethel, which seems to indicate that they are rather worried about her; but, when I called her by long distance, she either couldn't, or wouldn't tell me anything definite."

"I don't think that there is any real occasion for being disturbed," answered Philip, quietly. "Although I'll confess frankly that things haven't been going just right, and I'm not sorry to have you back and in charge of the case. Muriel made the acquaintance of a typhus bug—the Lord knows how—and, although I succeeded in getting the best of the fever fairly quickly, thanks to the able assistance of that nurse whom you swear by ..."

"Miss Merriman?"

"Yes, she's a wonder, isn't she? Well, as I said, we took care of the fever, all right; but the cerebral affection has been more persistent, and she hasn't convalesced as you would expect in a twelve-year-old child. She seems to be laboring under a sort of nervous depression, not so much physical as mental ... in fact, a psychos. It's common enough in older people, of course; but hanged if I ever saw anything just like it in a perfectly normal, and naturally happy child."

"H-m-m-m. What are the symptoms?"

"Psychological, all of them. She mopes; seems to take no healthy interest in anything, and, as a result, has no appetite; bursts out crying over the most trivial things—such as the chance of you're being blown up by a submarine on the way home—and frequently for no cause at all. Of course I packed the family off to the shore, as soon as she was able to be moved, in the belief that the change of scene and the sea air would effect a cure, but it hasn't. I can't find a thing wrong with her, physically, nor could Morse. I took him down on my own hook, in consultation, one day. It's a rather unusual case of purely psychological depression, and in my opinion all she needs is ..."

"A generous dose of Smiles," interrupted Donald.

"By thunder, you've struck it," cried Philip, as he gave the arm of his chair a resounding thump. "What an ass I've been not to have thought of that before, particularly as she has been so constantly in my thoughts. It's another case of a thing being too close to one for him to see it."

Donald stiffened suddenly. He held the match, with which he was about to light a cigar, poised in mid-air until the flame reached his fingers, and then blew it out, unused.

"In fact, it was about her, Don, that I was so anxious to see you," the other went on. His own nervousness made him unconscious of the effect which his words had produced on Donald. "Of course, she's practically of legal age now; but I know that she still regards you as her guardian and that in a sense you stand in loco parentis toward her. Certainly she regards your word as law. So I thought that, as she is practically alone in the world, it would be the only right and honorable thing to ... to speak to you, first."

"To speak to me ... first?" echoed Donald, a trifle unsteadily, as he struck another match and watched its flame, with unseeing eyes, until it, too, burned his fingers.

"Yes. Great Scott, can't you guess what I'm driving at? The plain fact is ... is that I love her, Don. I ... I want to marry her."

The words smote the older man's senses like a bolt from a clear sky, and they reeled, although he managed, somehow, to keep outwardly calm.

"You ... you haven't told her ... yet ... that you love her?" he managed to say, after a moment.

"No. At least, not directly; but I guess that she knows it. I wanted, first, to be sure that you would approve ... perhaps even sponsor my suit, for, although I mean, of course, to stand or fall on the strength of my own case, I know that she worships you, as a brother, and might be influenced by your attitude. You understand, don't you, old man?"

Donald nodded, then asked slowly, "Does ... does Smiles love you, Phil?"

"Yes, I think that I can honestly say that I believe she does. Of course no word of love has ever passed between us, but ... well, you know how it is."

With a mighty effort of his will, Donald conquered the trembling that had seized upon his body, and—on his third attempt—calmly lit the cigar. But his thoughts were running like a tumultuous millrace. "Blind, egotistical, self-confident fool," they shouted. "That something like this should have happened is the most natural thing in the world, and it has been farthest from your mind."

He remained silent so long that Philip was forced to laugh, a bit uneasily.

"I know well enough that I'm not half worthy of her—no man could be—but I hope that I'm not altogether ineligible, and I'm sure that I love her more than any one else could." At his words Donald winced. "I'll do my best to make her life a happy one, if she'll have me—you know that, old fellow. Well," he laughed again, "say something, can't you? I should almost get the idea that you were jealous, if I didn't also know that that is absurd. Your engagement to Marion Treville ... I suppose that you don't want to talk about that, but you know how deeply I feel for you."

Donald shook himself together, mentally, and made an effort to respond with convincing heartiness, although he found that his words sounded unnaturally, even to his own ears.

"Of course, you have my consent, if it's worth anything. If our little Rose does love you, I am sure that you can make her happy—you're a splendid chap, Phil, and I—and I appreciate what you have done for her while I was away. She wrote me all about it."

He stretched out his hand, and the other started from his chair, and wrung it heartily.

"Thanks, old man. You give me an added quota of courage, and I wish that I might go to her this minute; but I've been called out of town on an important case. I really shouldn't have taken the time even to stop here, but I simply had to see you to-night. Love is an awful thing, isn't it?"

"Yes," he answered, dully. "Love is always impatient ... I know that myself. Perhaps I ... that is, if I can get her ... Rose, I think that I will take her down to Ethel's with me, to-night, and you can ... can see her there. Where is she staying now?"

"With Miss Merriman's family, if she hasn't been called out on a case since morning. She's been doing district nursing, principally; but she's already had two private cases, you know."

Donald did not, and the realization of how far he had drifted away from his old, intimate association with Smiles' affairs, brought his heart an added stab of pain.

"The number is Back Bay, 4315." He glanced at his watch and then exclaimed, "Heavens, I've got to catch a train at the Trinity Place station in five minutes. Be ready to furnish bail for my chauffeur as soon as he is arrested for over-speeding. 'Night. I'll see you at Manchester in a few days ... that is if ..."

His words trailed off down the corridor, the front door closed and Donald was alone. No, not alone. Philip had gone, but the room was peopled with a multitude of ghosts and haunting spectres which he had left behind. The doctor had only to close his eyes in order to see them, gibbering and dancing on his hopes, which had been laid low by his friend's eager disclosure. Another loved her, another wanted to marry her, and that other could truthfully say that he believed she cared for him. No spoken words of love may have passed between them, but Donald knew well how unessential these were when heart called to heart.

This was his homecoming!

It were as though the eyes of his soul had been permitted, for a brief time, to behold a dazzling celestial light, which had suddenly failed, leaving the darkness blacker than before. The words which he had planned to utter had turned to bitter ashes in his mouth. He had to face the truth squarely. Rose was not, had never been, for him. It had been mere madness for him even to dream of such a thing. Had she not accepted him as a brother, and given him the frank affection of such relationship, which precludes love of the other sort?

His heart hurt and he felt old and weary again. Somewhere, hidden in a cabinet, was a bottle of whiskey, he remembered, and he sought it out and poured himself a generous glassful. But, when he raised it to his lips, the vision face of Smiles, as she had looked that first night on the mountain, when she told Big Jerry and Judd that "nary a drap o' thet devil's brew would ever be in house of hers," appeared before him, and, with a groan, he set it down, untasted.

Returning to his living-room, he sat a long time in mental readjustment, which was brought about with many a wrench at his heart; and when, at last, his old iron will—which had been weakened a little by illness and further softened by love—had once again been tempered in the crucible of anguish, the lines on his prematurely seamed face were deeper, and in his dark gray eyes was a new expression of pain.

* * * * *

In compliance with his telephoned request, Rose had packed her suit case, and was all ready to accompany him when he arrived at the Merrimans' apartment in a taxicab, to take her with him to the North Station to catch the nine o'clock train. She was irrepressibly the child, for the time being, and in her cheeks bloomed roses so colorful that Gertrude Merriman accused her of painting, while knowing well enough that joy needs no artistry.

"I'm almost too happy," she cried after hearing his voice over the wire, and proceeded to dance around the room, to the impromptu chant, "Donald, dear, is here, is here. Donald, dear, is here."

"Are you going to kiss him?" laughed her friend. But Rose was not to be teased, and answered, "Kiss him? I'll smother him with kisses. Isn't he my brother, and isn't he home again after being away two and a half years?"

When the apartment bell rang, it was Rose who ran to answer it, and whose sweet young voice, saying, "Oh, come up quick," Donald heard thrilling over the wire. His heart leaped, but his will steadied its increased pulsations. It leaped again when he reached the third floor, and the girl of his dreams threw herself upon him with laughter which was suspiciously like weeping, and with the smother of kisses, which she could not restrain nor he prevent, although each burned and seared his very soul.

She backed into the room and pulled him after her by the lapels of his coat; but, as the brighter light struck upon his face, she stopped with widening eyes, through which he could read the troubled question in her mind.

"Oh, my poor big brother. I didn't realize ... I mean, how you must have suffered. Poor dear, you don't have to tell me how ill you have been, so far away from all of us who love you."

Her pitying words drove the last nail in his crucified hopes. Not only were they, all too obviously, merely those of a child who loved him with a sister's love, but they told him how changed, wan and aged he was; one who was, in fact, no longer fitted to mate with radiant youth.

"'Old, ain't I, and ugly?'" He imitated Dick Deadeye with a laughing voice, but the laugh was not true.

"Old and ugly?" she repeated, in horror. "Donald, how can you? You're tired out, that is all; and as for this—" she lightly touched the sheen of silvery gray at his temples, where the alchemy of Time and stress had made its mark—"it makes you look so ... so distinguished that I am ashamed of my frivolously familiar manner of greeting you. But I just couldn't help it, and I promise not to embarrass you again. Yes, you were embarrassed. I could read it in your face."

There was but a moment for conversation with the others, and they were whirled off to catch the train for the North Shore resort.

When they were seated, face to face, in the Pullman chair car, there came a moment of silence, during which each studied the other covertly. Donald decided that, physically, the girl had not greatly changed from the picture of her which he had borne away in his heart. The passing years had merely deepened the charm of the soft, waving hair, whose rich and glinting chestnut strands swept low on her broad forehead and nestled against the nape of her neck; the slender patrician nose and wonderfully shadowed eyes; the smooth contour of cheek and rounded chin; and the tender glory which still trembled, as in the old days, on her sensitive lips. But, in her poise and speech, after the first rush of impetuous childlike eagerness had spent itself, he discovered a new maturity, and he realized that, where he had left a child, he found a woman, whose heart was no longer worn upon her sleeve. True, her gratitude and affection for him were unaltered. They showed in every word and look, and once the thought came to him that he might yet win the castle of Desire, if he should only determine to enter the lists against Philip. The primal man in him cried out against, and might have overcome, his better nature, which whispered that this would be treachery to a friend who had played fair, and was worthy, if there had not always been before his mind the consideration that the fight would be hopeless. Rose was not for him; she loved another.

And the girl? She cheered him with her smile, and loved him for the dangers he had passed as he, in the hope of in that subject finding a vent for his emotions, told her of the work he had been doing. But in her heart she was deeply disturbed. The tired, drawn look on his strong face would pass away, she felt; but the sight of the expression of pain in his eyes gave her thoughts pause. Had Marion Treville's faithlessness struck so deep? At the memory of her interview with the woman, Smiles' own eyes changed, and lost their quiet tenderness.

* * * * *

Morning had come, and the sunlight danced like a myriad host of tiny sprites, clad in cloth of gold over the broad blue bosom of the Atlantic and into the windows of little Muriel's cheerful bedroom. The door opened softly, and Rose, in trim uniform and cap, with its three black bands, slipped into the room, silently motioning the man in the hall outside to keep back out of sight. The child, thin and pale on her snowy bed, turned her head listlessly and looked at the intruder.

Suddenly the suggestion of a smile touched her colorless lips, and lighted her unnaturally heavy eyes. She sat up with a glad cry of surprise and welcome, "Why, it's my own Smiles! Wherever did you come from; are you going to make us a visit? Oh, I'm so glad."

"Yes, darling. I got so tired and grumpy up in the hot city that I just had to come down here to be cheered up. Will you help do it?"

"'Course I will. Why, just seeing you makes me want to cheer." She quickly swung her slender legs over the bedside. "Oh, now if dear Uncle Don were only safe home again it would be perfect. I've worried and worried about his getting hit by a bomb or being blown up by a submarine. I wish ..."

"And, presto! your wish is granted," laughed Donald, as he ran into the room and caught his small niece up in an old-time bear hug.

"Oh, oh, oh. It's better than a fairy tale. I'm so happy I could die, but instead I'm going to get well right off. I'm well now; where are my clothes?"

The little bare feet sought for bedroom slippers, and the light curls bobbed energetically as she enunciated, "Now that I've got you two I mean to keep you forever and ever. If you, Uncle Don, would only mar ..."

The man made haste to clap his hand over the offending mouth; but he was too late. Rose had heard, and, with glowing cheeks, replied quickly, "But you forget that Uncle Don adopted me as a little sister, long ago."

She slipped her hand through his arm and pressed it close to her for a moment, before laughing gayly, "Run along, man. Milady is about to dress and this is no place for you."



CHAPTER XXXI

THE VALLEY OF INDECISION

Early evening it was, several days later, evening of a sultry, stifling day, which had escaped the bounds of longitude and invaded even the North Shore. The open ocean, itself, seemed to have forgotten its habitual unrest and yielded to the general languor. From the Thayers' summer home—a glorified bungalow, broad of veranda and shingled silvery-olive, atop a long, terraced bank—it had the appearance of a limitless mirror, reflecting the unblemished blue infinity of the sky. Only the never-ceasing series of vague white lines which ever crept up the shelving beach, to vanish like half-formed dreams, showed that, although the mighty deep slept, its bosom rose and fell as it breathed.

The sky was a hazy horizon blue, unblemished save for a few vaporous clouds far in the west; the sun, well toward the end of its journey, was hazy, too, a thing of mystery; in the far eastern distance the broad Atlantic softened to a hazy violet-gray which, in turn, blended, almost without a line of demarcation, into the still more distant heavens.

Far out, above the waters, a solitary gull circled with slow, sweeping curves, and now and again planed to the surface of the sea and struck from it a faint white spark.

On the screened-in veranda, the members of the family, which now included Rose, sat or reclined, in attitudes of indolence, the men in negligee shirts and white flannels, the women in light dresses. Rose—who had, the day before, officially declared herself "off" the case; but had stayed on, a guest, at the general solicitation—wore a white dimity faintly sprinkled with her favorite rosebuds.

Her ex-patient sat on a little stool close by her side, a book of fairy stories resting on her elevated bare knees. The companionship of her beloved Smiles had already brought the warm color of health back to her cheeks and banished the listless look from her eyes. Her mother and Mr. MacDonald, Senior, were reading. Rose, chin resting on her cupped palm, was gazing seaward with a dreamy, far-away expression in her eyes, as blue as the sea itself. Donald sat back of her, and scarcely turned his gaze from the even contour of her cheek and neck and the shimmering glory of her hair, as he pulled leisurely at his cigar.

Only little Don showed signs of activity; for, with the boundless energy of four-and-a-half years, he was skidding and rolling industriously from one end of the porch to the other on a kiddie-car—a relic of the year before, and now much too small for him. With more or less dexterity he was weaving his way in and out among the various obstacles, animate and otherwise.

After looking for many silent minutes at the girl he loved, Donald said, tritely, "A penny for your thoughts, Smiles."

"Sir, you value them too high. I was thinking about you," she laughed.

"A likely story! I know well enough that your mind was far away from the present spot—the far-off expression on your face is indication enough of that. Furthermore, I'll wager that I can guess pretty nearly where they were."

It was a random shot, but he was disquieted to observe that it brought a faint blush in her cheeks. The added color, soft and lovely in itself, was darkly reflected on his heart.

Jumping up, Smiles cried, with a mock pout, "I shan't stay here to be made the subject of a demonstration of clairvoyancy. My thoughts are my own, and I mean to keep them so, sir."

As she ran into the house Donald's eyes followed her, moodily. And if he had, indeed, possessed the power of divination which he had laid pretence to, the expression in them, and the shadow on his spirit, would have been justified.

Rose ran lightly upstairs, and, as she approached her room, drew from within her waist a letter. There was something both mysterious and childlike in the manner that she next opened one of the drawers of her dressing table and, taking out a box which held almost all of her modest treasures, started to place the letter with them.

Instead, however, she paused to lift out a neat little package containing a score or more of other epistles, tied together with a white ribbon. For a moment she hesitated, as though she were both mentally and physically weighing the objects held in either hand. A shadow of strange uncertainty came into her eyes, the outward expression of an inward uncertainty foreign to her nature. Slowly, she turned from her reflection in the mirror and dropped down on the edge of the daintily counterpaned bed. With hesitating fingers she untied the ribbon from the package and began to glance through the unbound letters, pausing at intervals to read stray paragraphs from them. Each one began and ended almost the same—"Dear little Smiles" and "Affectionately your friend, Donald."