Her gaze, blurred though it was with tears, instantly sought Joe’s portrait, and the honest goggle eyes of the picture looked back, as it seemed to her, with infinite sadness. “Ladysmith is relieved,” they seemed to say; “the victory is won—and I was not there.” When presently the door creaked slowly open and Mrs. Blanchard entered, moving unwieldily on tip-toe, she found Susan seated by her steaming wash-tub with her apron thrown over her head. “Don’t ’ee fret, my dear,” she said soothingly. “There isn’t one in the village as don’t sympathise for ’ee; and we do all feel as our own j’y bain’t full, so to speak. There, we do say to ourselves: If our own soldier was wi’ the others how proud we mid be!” Mrs. Stuckhey did not answer, but pressed her apron more closely to her face with her trembling hands. Poor hands—seamed and sodden and, as it were, pock-marked from perpetual immersion in the suds; knotted and distorted by hard and heavy work—what a tale they told of privation and of toil! “I don’t agree wi’ Martha Woolridge,” went on the visitor after a pause. “’Tisn’t fair to say as you have no feelin’ for the poor folks as was shut up over yonder. ’Tis but nat’ral you should be sorry your Joe didn’t have no hand in it.” Susan jerked down her apron, and her eyes flashed beneath their red and swollen lids. “Who says he didn’t have no hand in it?” she cried. “He did have a hand in it! Didn’t ’ee hear what Farmer Joyce did say? My son Joe were one o’ the foundations o’ the army.” She rose as she spoke and crossed the kitchen, her small figure dignified, even majestic. She fumbled in the old-fashioned chest of drawers and drew forth a paper packet. Returning, she laid it upon the table, casting, as she did so, a glance at once severe and resolute upon the astonished Mrs. Blanchard; then, taking her sweeping-brush from behind the door, she proceeded with much deliberation to knock off its head. “In the name o’ fortun’, Susan Stuckhey,” ejaculated her friend, “what be you a-goin’ to do?” “You’ll see for yourself in a minute,” returned Susan; and, armed with the broom-handle and the little parcel, she went upstairs. Mrs. Blanchard went out, backing away from the house, and fixing her eyes wonderingly, almost incredulously, on Susan’s upper window. Following the direction of her glance, Mrs. Woolridge and a few other women who had meanwhile gathered together gazed also expectantly upwards. Presently the latticed casement was thrown open and a sudden gleam of blue and scarlet fluttered over their heads. “Bless me, woman, whatever are you at?” cried Mrs. Woolridge in shocked and horrified tones. “Ye don’t mean to say as you can have the heart—” Susan’s resolute face looked forth a moment above her waving banner. “I be a-doin’ what my son Joe did tell I to do. I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”