The sound of the anthem came faint and sweet over the ivied wall into the garden of the Dower House, where Harry was standing alone under the cedar in his black clothes, his hands behind his back, mournfully contemplating the little mud hut which he and Tommy had made for the hedgehog which lived in the garden. His ally Tommy, who was a member of the choir, was absent. So was the hedgehog. It was not sitting in its own house looking out at the door as it ought to have been, and as Tommy had said it would. Harry had shed tears because the hedgehog did not appreciate its house. That prickly recluse had shown such unwillingness to intrude, to force his society on the other possible inmates, indeed, although conscious of steady pressure from behind, had offered such determined and ball-like resistance at the front door, that a large crack had appeared in the wall. Harry heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly got out his marbles. Marbles remain when hedgehogs pass away. Presently the nurse, who had been watching him from the window, came swiftly from the house, and sat down near him, on the round seat under the cedar. "Must I stop?" he said docilely at once, smiling at her. "No, no," she said, trying to smile back at him. "Go on. But don't make a noise." He gravely resumed his game, and she gazed at him intently, as if she had never seen him before, looking herself how worn and haggard in the soft September sunshine. It was one of those gracious days when the world seems steeped in peace, when bitterness and unrest and self-seeking "fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away." No breath stirred. High in the windless spaces above the elms, the rooks were circling and cawing. The unwhispering trees laid cool, transparent shadows across the lawns. All was still--so still that even the hedgehog, that reluctant householder, came slowly out of a clump of dahlias, and hunched himself on the sun-warmed grass. The woman on the bench saw him, but she did not point him out to Harry. Why should not the hedgehog also have his hour of peace? And presently, very pure and clear, came Annette's voice: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." The Riff Choir knew only two anthems. The nurse leaned her tired head in its speckless little cap against the trunk of the cedar, and the tears welled up into her eyes.