Rose Mather’s home was a beautiful place, containing everything which love could devise, or money purchase, and Rose was very happy there, dancing like a sunbeam through the handsome rooms of which she was the mistress, and singing as gaily as her pet canary in its gilded cage by the door. No shadow of sorrow or care had ever crossed her pathway, and the eighteen summers of her short life had come and gone like so many pleasant memories, bringing with them one successive round of joys, leaving no blight behind, and bearing with them, alas, no thanks for the good bestowed, for Rose was far too thoughtless to think that the Providence which shielded her so tenderly, might have dealt more harshly with her. But the shadow was creeping on apace, and Rose was conscious that the war meeting had awakened within her a new and uncomfortable train of thought. Like many others, she had a habit of believing that nothing very bad could happen to her, and so, let what might occur, she was sure her husband would be spared. Still, in spite of her gaiety, an undefined something haunted her all the way from the church, and even when alone with her husband in her tasteful sitting-room, with the bright gas-light falling cheerily around her, and adding a fresh lustre to the elegant furniture, she could not shake it off, nor guess what it was that ailed her. At last, however, it came to her, suggested by the sight of her husband’s evening paper, and laying her curly head upon his knee, she gave vent to her restlessness in the expression: “I wish there wouldn’t be any war. What is it all for? Tell me, please.”