Mrs Asplin stood still in the middle of the path and drew a long fluttering breath. Her eyes grew rapt, and she clasped the girl's hand in an ecstasy of emotion. "Peggy, it's--_wonderful_!" she sighed. "It is like being suddenly lifted on to a plateau and seeing life above the clouds! Everything is different, everything is altered! Things that were forgotten before seem now to fill in the whole view; things that were large and looming, seem, oh, so small, so mean and trifling! I look back, and can hardly understand how I worried myself about useless trifles--little shabbinesses about the house, upset of arrangements, clothes and food and holiday-making. When you once realise the uncertainty of life, they seem of such unutterable unimportance. And it helps one to be gentle, too, because if by chance it should happen to be the last day one had to live, how sad it would be to speak hasty words, or to leave some one sorrowing because of neglect or unkindness! It makes one long to do kind things and say cheering words, and oh, so terrified of losing an opportunity which may never come again! The doctor's verdict was a great shock to me at first, but I am gradually coming to look upon it as one of the greatest of blessings, for it's a hasty, impetuous creature I've been all my days, and this quiet waiting time is going to teach me many lessons. I ought to be grateful and happy that it has been granted me." Peggy bit her lips and looked at the ground. She could not trust herself to speak, but in her heart she was saying: "And after all, she may live longer than I! Every life is uncertain. _I_ ought to feel like that too. I ought to climb up to that high ground above the clouds. It's because she is a Christian that she feels like that. I used always to think that very good people must be dull and gloomy, but Mrs Asplin is the happiest creature I know, and so full of fun... We used to go to her for help in all our school-day pranks, and now when she knows she is going to die, she is happy still, and quite calm and bright. I should like--oh, I should like to be good like that! One can't always be young, and pretty, and happy, and strong; and if I am going to be a Christian at all, I want to begin now, and not wait until the troubles begin. That would feel mean! I wouldn't treat any one on earth like that--ignore him altogether so long as everything went well, and fly to him for help the moment I was in difficulties... That awful night when Arthur told us that the doctors would not pass him for the Army, Mrs Asplin said that there were more ways than one of being a soldier, and I knew what she meant. `A soldier of Christ!' _I_ could be that as well as Arthur, and I have been longing to fight all my life... How does it go? ... "`Soldiers of Christ arise, And put your armour on, Strong in the strength which God supplies Through His Eternal Son!'