"Don't ask me," she said disconsolately. "He's grieving himself into his grave about you. But he doesn't say a word, and he won't let me say a word. Oh, dear!" Then Henry Cobb came out and greeted Aunt Millicent, and, after a few more inquiries and admonitions, she kissed Pen good-by and went on her way. Mr. Cobb was going on down to Chestnut Valley, but, as the train to Lowbridge did not leave until afternoon, Pen said he would go down later. So he was left on the sidewalk there alone. He did not quite know what to do with himself. The boys were, doubtless, all in school. He walked up the street a little way, and then he walked back again. He had no reason for entering any of the stores, and no desire to do so. There was really no place for him to go. Finally he decided that he would go down to the Valley and wait there for the train. So he started on down the hill. People whom he met, acquaintances of the old days, looked at him askance, spoke to him indifferently, or ignored him altogether. It seemed to him that he was like a stranger in an alien land. As he passed by the school-house a boy whom he did not know was lingering about the steps. Otherwise there was no one in sight. Then, suddenly, there burst upon his view a sight for which he was not prepared. In the yard on the lower side of the school-house, the yard through which he and his victorious troops had driven the retreating enemy at the battle of Chestnut Hill, a flag-staff was standing; tall, straight, symmetrical, and from its summit floated the Star-Spangled Banner; the very banner that he had trodden under his feet that February day. It was as though some one had struck him on the breast with an ice-cold hand. He gasped and stood still, his eyes fixed immovably on the flag. Then something stirred within him, a strange impulse that ran the quick gamut of his nerves; and when he came to himself he was standing in the street, with head bared and bowed, and his eyes filled with tears. Like Saul of Tarsus he had been stricken in the way, and ever afterward, whenever and wherever he saw his country's flag, his soul responded to the sight, and thrilled with memories of that April day when first he discovered that rare quality of patriotism that had hitherto lain dormant in his breast. So he walked on down to the railroad station in Chestnut Valley, and went into the waiting-room and sat down. It was very lonely there and it was very tiresome waiting for the train.