There must have been some talk about the money that there wouldn’t be now; without his little weekly check she was indeed almost penniless. It is quite likely that they spoke of selling the house and decided against it. Part of the boy’s pay was of course to come to his grandmother, but, as she explained, there were so many war charities needing that, and then the wool for her knitting— She must manage mostly with the farm. There was always the vegetable-garden, and a few chickens, and the green meadow, which might be expected to yield a record crop of hay. We may imagine that the two—old lady and boy—stepped out for a moment into the moonlit night to look at the poor little domain of Buchan that was left. Under the little breeze that drifted up from the Delaware the grass bent in long waves like those of the summer seas that Georgie was to cross to France. As the Buchans looked at it they might have felt some wonder at the century-old fertility of the soil. Back in the days of the Revolution Washington’s horse had pastured there one night. Then, and in 1812, and during the great battle of the States, the grass had grown green and the hay been fragrant, and the fat Jersey earth had out of its depths brought forth something to help the nation at war. Such a field as that by the old white house can scarcely be thought of as a wild, primeval thing; it has lived too long under the hand of man. This was a Buchan field, George’s meadow, and by moonlight it seemed to wave good-by to him. “You aren’t dependent on me now, dear,” he may have said, with his arm around his grandmother. “I just leave you to our little garden patch and our chickens and the green meadow.” “You mustn’t worry, dear. They’ll take care of me,” she must have answered. So George went away; and the night after, the night before he sailed, the horseman and his company came. ―――― It was at dusk, and a gossamer silvery mist had drifted up from the Delaware. He had hitched his horse by the gate. He was in riding-breeches and gaiters and a rather old-fashioned riding-coat. And in the band of his hat he had stuck a small American flag which looked oddly enough almost like a cockade. He knocked at the door, quite ignoring the new electric bell which George had installed one idle Sunday morning when his grandmother had felt he should have been at church. As it happened, old Mrs. Buchan had been standing by the window, watching the mist creep up and the twilight come, thinking of Georgie so soon to be upon the water. As the horseman knocked she, quite suddenly and quite contrary to her usual custom, went herself to the door.