"It was the most dastardly thing I ever heard, Major," said Phoebe quietly with a deep note in her voice. "For one moment I sat stunned. The long line of veterans as I saw them last year at the reunion, old and gray, limping some of them, but glory in their bright faces, some of them singing and laughing, came back to me. I thought my heart would burst at the insult to them and to--us, their children. But when David rose from his chair beside me I drew a long breath. I wish you could have heard him and seen him. He was stately and courteous--and he said it _all_. He voiced the love and the reverence that is in all our hearts for them. It was a very dignified forceful speech--and _David_ made it!" Phoebe stood close against the table and for a moment veiled her tear-starred eyes from the major's keen glance. "Phoebe," he said after a moment's silence, "I sometimes think the world lacks a standard by which to measure some of her vaster products. Perhaps you and I have just explored the heart of David Kildare so far. But a heart as fine as his isn't going to pump fool blood into any man's brain--eh?" "Sometimes and about some things, you do me a great injustice, Major," answered Phoebe slowly, with a serious look into the keen eyes bent upon hers. "Of all the 'glad crowd', as David calls us, I am the only woman who comes directly in contact with the struggling, working, hand-to-hand fight of life, and I can't help letting it affect me in my judgment of--of us. I can't forget it when--when I amuse myself or let David amuse me. I seem to belong with them and not in the life he would make for me; yet you know I care--but if you are going to get out that extra edition you must get to work. I will sit here and get up my one o'clock notes for the imp, and if you need me, tell me so." The major bestowed a slow quizzical smile upon her and took up his pen. For an hour they both wrote rapidly with now a quick question from the major and a concise answer from Phoebe, or a short debate over the wording of one of his sentences or paragraphs. The editorial minds of the graybeard and the girl were of much the same quality and they had written together for many years. The major had gone far in the molding of Phoebe's keen wit. "Why, here you are, Phoebe," exclaimed Mrs. Buchanan as she hurried into the room just as Phoebe was finishing some of her last paragraphs, "Caroline and I have been telephoning everywhere for you. Do come and motor out to the Country Club with us for lunch. David and Andrew left some partridges there yesterday as they came from hunting on Old Harpeth, to be grilled for us to-day. You are going out there to play bridge with Mrs. Shelby's guest from Charleston at three, so please come with us now!" She was all eagerness and she rested one plump, persuasive little hand on Phoebe's arm. To Mrs. Matilda, any time that Phoebe could be persuaded to frolic was one of undimmed joy.