When, at length, news came from the other side it was Phœbe who was the bringer of the tidings. "Oh, Mother Bab," she cried breathlessly one day in autumn as she ran back from the gate after a visit from the postman, "it's a letter from France!" Phares Eby and his mother ran at the news and the four stood, an eager group, as Phœbe opened the letter. "Read it, Phœbe! He's over safely!" Mother Bab's voice was eager. "I--I can't read it. I'm too excited. I can't get my breath. You read it, Phares." The preacher read in his slow, calm way. "_Somewhere in France._ "DEAR MOTHER: "You see by the heading I'm safe over here. I can't tell you much about the trip--no use wearing out the censor's pencils. The sea's wonderful, but I like dry land better. I'm on dry land now, in a quaint French village where the streets run up hill and the people wear strange costumes. The women wash their clothes by beating them on stones in the brook--how would the Lancaster County women like that?" It was a long, chatty letter and it warmed the heart of the mother and interested Phœbe and the others who heard it. "He's a great David," the preacher said as he handed the letter to Phœbe. "I suppose you'll have to read it over and over to Aunt Barbara." He looked at the girl as he spoke. Her high color and shining eyes spoke eloquently of her interest in the letter. "Ah," he thought, "I believe she still _likes Davie best_. I'm sure she does." The preacher had been greatly changed by the events of the past year. He would always be a bit too strict in his views of life, a bit narrow in many things. Nevertheless, he was changed. He was less harsh in his opinions of others since he had seen and heard how thousands who were not of his religious faith had gone forth to lay down their lives that the world might be made a decent place in which to live. He, Phares Eby, preacher, had formerly denounced all that pertained to actors and the theatre, yet tears had coursed down his cheeks as he had read the account of a famous comedian who had given his only son for the cause of freedom and who was going about in the camps and in the trenches bringing cheer to the men. As the preacher read that he confessed to himself that the comedian, familiar as he was with footlights, was doing more good in the world than a dozen Phares Ebys. That one incident swept away some of the prejudice of the preacher. He knew he could never sanction the doings so many people indulge in but he felt at the same time that those same pleasures need not have a damning influence upon all people.