“No, of course not. Country air and not too many people; that is the kind of tonic our boys will want. What would you think of going to Ireland?” Norah drew a long breath of delight. “Oh-h!” she said. “You do make the most beautiful plans, daddy! We’ve always wanted to go there more than anywhere: and war wouldn’t seem so near to us there, and we could try to make the boys forget gas and trenches and shells and all sorts of horrors.” “That’s just it,” said her father. “The wisest doctor I ever knew used to say that change of environment was worth far more than change of air; we might try to manage both for them, Norah. Donegal was your mother’s country: I’ve been meaning to go there. She loved it till the day she died.” In the tumult of the Strand Norah slipped a hand into her father’s. Very seldom did he speak of the one who was always in his memory: the little mother who had grown tired, and had slipped out of life when Norah was a baby. “Let’s go there, daddy,” she begged. “We’ll consult the boys,” said Mr. Linton. “Eh, but it’s good to think we shall have them to consult with to-morrow! You know, Norah, since Jim left school, I’ve become so used to consulting him on all points, that I feel a lost old man without him.” “You’ll never be old!” said his daughter, indignantly. “But Jim just loves you to talk to him the way you do,—I know he does, only, of course, he’s quite unable to say so.” “Jim has lots of sense,” said Jim’s father. “So has Wally, for that matter: there is plenty of shrewdness hidden somewhere in that feather-pate of his. They’re very reliable boys. I was ‘thinking back’ the other night, and I don’t remember ever having been really angry with Jim in my life.” “I should think not!” said Norah, regarding him with wide eyes of amazement. “Why would you be angry with him?” “Why, I don’t know,” said her father rather helplessly. “Jim never was a pattern sort of boy.” “No, but he had sense,” said Norah. She began to laugh. “Oh, I don’t know how it is,” she said. “We’ve all been mates always: and mates don’t get angry with each other, or they wouldn’t be mates.” “I suppose that’s it,” Mr. Linton said, accepting this comprehensive description of a bush family standpoint. “There’s a ’bus that will go our way, Norah: I’ve had enough of elbowing my way through this crowd.”