THE BIG BLUE SOLDIER _GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL’S_ _Charming and Wholesome Romances_ The City of Fire The Tryst Cloudy Jewel Exit Betty The Search The Red Signal The Enchanted Barn The Finding of Jasper Holt The Obsession of Victoria Gracen Miranda The Best Man Lo, Michael! Marcia Schuyler Phoebe Deane Dawn of the Morning The Mystery of Mary The Girl from Montana THE BIG BLUE SOLDIER _BY_ GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL AUTHOR OF “THE CITY OF FIRE,” “MARCIA SCHUYLER,” ETC. [Illustration] PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1923 COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. THE BIG BLUE SOLDIER CHAPTER I “And you don’t think maybe I ought to have had lemon custard to go with the pumpkin instead of the mince?” Miss Marilla Chadwick turned from her anxious watching at the kitchen window to search Mary Amber’s clear young eyes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “Oh, no, I think mince is much better. All men like mince-pie, it’s so--sort of comprehensive, you know.” Miss Marilla turned back to her window, satisfied. “Well, now, if he came on that train, he ought to be in sight around the bend of the road in about three minutes,” she said tensely. “I’ve timed it often when folks were coming out from town, and it always takes just six minutes to get around the bend of the road.” All through the months of the Great War Miss Marilla had knit and bandaged and emergencied and canteened with an eager, wistful look in her dreamy gray eyes, and many a sweater had gone to some needy lad with the little thrilling remark as she handed it over to the committee: “I keep thinking, what if my nephew Dick should be needing one, and this just come along in time?” But when the war was over, and most people had begun to use pink and blue wool on their needles, or else cast them aside altogether and tried to forget there ever had been such a thing as war, and the price of turkeys had gone up so high that people forgot to be thankful the war was over, Miss Marilla still held that wistful look in her eyes, and still spoke of her nephew Dick with bated breath and a sigh. For was not Dick among those favored few who were to remain and do patrol work for an indefinite time in the land of the enemy, while others were gathered to their waiting homes and eager loved ones? Miss Marilla spoke of Dick as of one who still lingered on the border-land of terror, and who laid his young life a continuous sacrifice for the good of the great world.