“However, it may be light,” said Ruhet. “Lift it. Nothing but a tin can, perhaps a present—hah! a tin can sent to us with provisions! Open it. They are very prettily put up, if they are to eat.” Ruhet touched it. “It is hot. And that suggests the soup-spring. Open it. Wahr, is this the soup-spring, you rogue?” Wahr looked wise. Weiss Nicht withheld the men solemnly. “Do not touch it. It is full of magic. It is that has done the clipping.” “Pooh!” said Wahr. “Pooh, sire!” “Do you really think so?” whispered Ruhet, half believing Nicht. “Well, it will do no more. Over with it.” Two men—then ten men—then twenty men—grasped it. “It is not soup, at all events,” laughed Hier Ruhet. “Aha, ha, ha!” echoed the odious Wahr—still looking wise. “Not soup!” “Over with it! Quick!” cried the impudent Nicht, ignoring both his superior officers in his fear. Each was about to administer a separate reprimand to the poor gunner’s mate. But at that moment it exploded. “SIS”[6] I WHERE THE ORCHARDS SMELLED Once there were two old ladies who lived alone, in an old house with blue china and straight-backed chairs. And the key-note of that house (as every house has its key-note) was peace. I, who lived in a city, went there, now and then, to rest for a brief while in its peace and grow strong. For it was in the country, and all about it was the smell of orchards. One of the beautiful old ladies was blind. The other was so frail that it seemed a marvel how she kept going. Yet they never rested,—in the fashion which I should have called rest,—but were always as sentinels on duty. I was sluggard enough to sigh, occasionally, for a reclining chair or a couch. There was no such thing in the house. There never had been. It was sufficient for them that their ancestors had had nothing of the kind. For this was the doctrine of their simple lives—to be no more than (and as much as possible what) their mother and their father had been; to hold all good which they had held good, and to call evil what they had called evil; then to lie beside them at the end. There was a curious correlation between their several infirmities. They believed that God designed it so. The frail one was eyes, the blind one was strength—to both. Now, you are not to suppose that they were moody and melancholy and sour. On the contrary, they loved laughter, and constantly laughed at the queer straits into which their limitations so often brought them; at the equally queer contrivances by which they were overcome. They laughed—yes—at themselves—gently—as they did all things.