"I hadn't any one but you and your husband to care. Oh, Aunt Hester loves me, of course, and is awfully good to me--but the Elder--I always feel somehow as if he expects me to go to the bad. He never had any use for my father, I guess. Was my father--was--he no good? Don't mind telling me the truth: I ought to know." "Your father was not so well known here, but he was, in Bertrand's estimation, a royal Irish gentleman. We both liked him; no one could help it. Never think hardly of him." "Why has he never cared for me? Why have I never known him?" "There was a quarrel--or--some unpleasantness between your uncle and him; it's an old thing." Richard's lip quivered an instant, then he drew himself up and smiled on her, then he stooped and kissed her. "Some of us must go; we can't let this nation be broken up. Some men must give their lives for it; and I'm one of those who ought to go, for I have no one to mourn for me. Half the class has enlisted." "I venture to say you suggested it, too?" "Well--yes." "And Peter Junior was the first to follow you?" "Well, yes! I'm sorry--because of Aunt Hester--but we always do pull together, you know. See here, let's not think of it in this way. There are other ways. Perhaps I'll come back with straps on my shoulders and marry Betty some day." "God grant you may; that is, if you come back as you left us. You understand me? The same boy?" "I do and I will," he said gravely. That was a happy hour they spent at the evening meal, and many an evening afterwards, when hardship and weariness had made the lads seem more rugged and years older, they spoke of it and lived it over. CHAPTER III A MOTHER'S STRUGGLE "Come, Lady, come. You're slow this morning." Mary Ballard drove a steady, well-bred, chestnut mare with whom she was on most friendly terms. Usually her carryall was filled with children, for she kept no help, and when she went abroad, she must perforce take the children with her or spend an unquiet hour or two while leaving them behind. This morning she had left the children at home, and carried in their stead a basket of fruit and flowers on the seat beside her. "Come, Lady, come; just hurry a little." She touched the mare with the whip, a delicate reminder to haste, which Lady assumed to be a fly and treated as such with a switch of her tail. The way seemed long to Mary Ballard this morning, and the sun beating down on the parched fields made the air quiver with heat. The unpaved road was heavy with dust, and the mare seemed to drag her feet through it unnecessarily as she jogged along. Mary was anxious and dreaded the visit she must make. She would be glad when it was over. What could she say to the stricken woman who spent her time behind closed blinds? Presently she left the dust behind and drove along under the maple trees that lined the village street, over cool roads that were kept well sprinkled.