"I didn't see him over there, but Henry ran across him and said that he is doing fine work. He's got his third pip and is attached to headquarters of one of the brigades of the First Division as a learner. He has been wounded once, I believe, but very slightly." "And I used to think that Pat wasn't much good--too easy-going and loose-footed," said Mr. Hammond bitterly. "My idea of a man was a storekeeper. Well, I think of him now, and I stick out my chest--and then I remember Jim, and my chest caves in again." They were interrupted then by Vivia; so nothing more was said about the deserter. After supper Peter had to prove to the family that he could dance on his new leg. "I'll hitch the grays to the pung," said Mr. Hammond when about eight o'clock Peter got ready to go. "It's a fine night, and the roads are a marvel. I'll drive you home." "And I am going too," said Vivia. Dry maple sticks burned on the hearth of the big Franklin stove in the sitting room of Beaver Dam. Flora sat at the big table writing a letter to Dick; John Starkley and Jim Hammond played checkers; and Mrs. Starkley nodded in a chair by the fire. Emma had gone to bed. John Starkley had his hand raised and hovering for a master move when a jangle of bells burst suddenly upon their ears. Flora darted to a window, and the farmer hastened to the front door; but by the time Flora had drawn back the curtains and her father had opened the door Jim Hammond was upstairs and in his room. Jim did not light the candle that stood on the window sill at the head of his bed. He closed the door behind him. The blind was up; starshine from the world of white and purple and silver without sifted faintly into the little room. He stood for a minute in the middle of the floor, listening to the broken and muffled sounds of talk and laughter from the lower hall. He heard a trill of Vivia's laughter. What had brought Vivia out again, he wondered. News of Peter, beyond a doubt; and good news, to judge by the sounds. He seated himself cautiously on the edge of the bed. Now he heard his father's voice. Yes--and John Starkley was laughing. There was another man's voice, but he could hear only a low note of it now and then in the confused, happy babble of sound. A door shut--and then he could not hear anything. He wondered who the third man was and decided that he probably was some one from the village who had just arrived home and who had brought messages from Peter. Perhaps, he thought, Peter was even then on his way from England.