For a moment the father could not answer. Then difficult tears of manhood and maturity forced their way from his eyes and unheeded rolled down his cheeks. With a step he put his arms about the boy as if the boy were a child, and the boy threw his about his father's shoulders. For a long second the two tall men stood so. The woman, standing apart, through the shipwreck of her earthly life was aware only of happiness safe where sorrow and loss could not touch it. What was separation, death itself, when love stronger than death held people together as it held Hugh and her boys and herself? Then the older Hugh stood away, still clutching the lad's hand, smiling through unashamed tears. "Hugh," he said, "in all America there's not a man prouder of his son than I am of you. There's not a braver soldier in our armies than the soldier who's to take my name into France." He stopped and steadied himself; he went on: "It would have broken my heart, boy, if you had failed--failed America. And your mother--and Brock and me. Failed your own honor. It would have meant for us shame and would have bowed our heads; it would have meant for you disaster. Don't fear for your courage, Hugh; the Lord won't forsake the man who carries the Lord's colors." Young Hugh turned suddenly to his mother. "I'm at peace now. You and Dad--honor me. I'll deserve respect from--my country. It will be a wall around me--And--" he caught her to him and crushed his mouth to hers--"dearest--Brock will hold my hand." THE SILVER STIRRUP In the most unexpected spots vital sparks of history blaze out. Time seems, once in a while, powerless to kill a great memory. Romance blooms sometimes untarnished across centuries of commonplace. In a new world old France lives. * * * * * It is computed that about one-seventh of the French-Canadian population of Canada enlisted in the great war. The stampede of heroism seems to have left them cold. A Gospel of the Province first congealed the none too fiery blood of the _habitants_, small farmers, very poor, thinking in terms of narrowest economy, of one pig and ten children, of painstaking thrift and a bare margin to subsistence. Such conditions stifle world interests. The earthquake which threatened civilization disturbed the _habitant_ merely because it hazarded his critical balance on the edge of want. The cataclysm over the ocean was none of his affair. And his affairs pressed. What about the pig if one went to war? And could Alphonse, who is fourteen, manage the farm so that there would be vegetables for winter? Tell me that.