"Darling Folks: Julius and I just got into this town from a month of hard marching, ditch-digging and fighting. I am all right, and so is Julius. Ran across Frank, who is on duty at our Commissary. Lucky guy! Lots of food always around! Paul is growing fat. Looks mighty good. Oh, how all of us do miss you and good old Branton Hills! I can't find a solitary suit in this town that I would put on to go to a dog fight! _Such fashion!_" and so on; just a natural outpouring from a boy, away on his first trip from his Dad's kindly roof. "Ha, ha!" said Gadsby, laughing jovially; "That's our Bill, all right! Always thinking of dolling up!" and Lady Gadsby, rising quickly, said:-- "Oh, I must call up Nancy, Kathlyn and Sarah!" and, in a trio of small bungalows, joy, _wild_ joy, found its way into girlish minds! As Gadsby sat, going through this good word again and again, a mirthful chuckling had Lady Gadsby asking:-- "What's so funny about it?" "Nothing; only if I didn't know that Frank is such a grand, good lad, I'd think Bill was hiding a bit from us; for that 'on duty at Commissary' _might_ amount only to potato paring!" XXX Priscilla Standish was waiting at our big railroad station, on a warm Spring day, for a train to pull out, so that cross-track traffic could start again. It was just an ordinary train such as stop hourly at Branton Hills, but Priscilla saw that a group was hurrying toward a combination-car, way up forward. Now Priscilla was not a girl who found morbid curiosity in any such a public spot; but, still, an odd, uncanny sort of thrill,--almost a chill, in fact,--was urging, urging a slow walk toward that car. Just why, Priscilla didn't know; but such things do occur in a human mind. So Priscilla soon was standing on a trunk truck, gazing down into that group which now was slowly moving back, forming room for taking out a young man in khaki uniform, on a hospital cot. With a gasp of horror, Priscilla was instantly down from that truck, pushing through that group, and crying out, wildly:-- "_Arthur!_ Arthur Rankin! Oh! Oh! What is it, darling?" and looking up at a hospital assistant, "Is it bad?" "Don't know, right now, lady," said that snowy clad official. "Unconscious. But our big hospital will do all it can for him." Arthur Rankin! Arthur, with whom Priscilla had had many a childhood spat! Arthur who had shown that "puppy stuff" for Priscilla, that his old aunt was always so disapprovingly sniffing at! And now, unconscious on a,---- With a murmuring of sympathy from that sorrowing public, now dissolving, as all crowds do, Priscilla had a quick, comforting thought: "Kathlyn is working at that hospital!" Kathlyn had known Arthur as long as Priscilla had; and Kathlyn's famous ability would----