Philip, who sat leaning against a tree, with his arm around Jean, softly stroked the lad’s dark head. Somehow he had shown more than the usual interest in the little refugee, undoubtedly drawn to him in recognition of the fact that he was also a victim of German barbarity, and because they both spoke the same language. Nathalie, with a thrill of joy, had noticed his tender, protecting watchfulness over the boy, and how Jean’s big eyes would gaze up at the young man with a gleam in their depths like that of some adoring dog, who yearns for the hand of his master in silent caress! “There is not much to tell,” returned Philip after a pause, with the hesitancy of one who dislikes to talk about himself, “for you must know I am no hero.” He smiled at the girlish faces so eagerly watching him. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, unconsciously pushing Jean from him. “I am an American,” he exclaimed abruptly, “for my father came of good old New England stock, although I was born in the South. But my heart has been strangely stirred since I came over here, for the Americans are asleep,—they do not sense what they are up against in this war of the nations.” His dark gray eyes flashed into flame. “Sometimes I feel I would like to be another Paul Revere, and ride like the wind, knocking on doors and windows, shouting to the slumberers, ‘The Huns are coming!’ _They must_ be roused to the truth that this war is their war, and that they have not buckled to their job.” He paused a moment, the fire dying out of his eyes as he continued, “I was feeling in unusually good spirits that summer of 1914, for I had just formed a partnership with a well-known architect, and business gave assurance of giving me a very comfortable income, and place me in a position to repay my mother, who had denied herself in order to put me through college. “Into this mood of complacent satisfaction with myself and world in general, came a jar one day in June when the newspapers announced, in glaring headlines, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. And, almost before we had digested its portent, came Austria’s ultimatum to little Serbia. People began to grow restive, alarm-fired, keyed to a tense state of expectancy that something was in the air, but—what? Then tongues were loosened and eyes flashed fire as the Prime Minister’s scathing denunciation of Germany’s ‘infamous proposal’ was bandied from mouth to mouth, followed by Great Britain’s ultimatum that Belgium’s neutrality must be respected. “Then came hours of anxious suspense, a harrowing waiting-time, with every one’s heart aquiver, while a little group of men in Downing Street held their watches in their hands as they awaited Germany’s reply. It came. The deep-toned clang of Big Ben told to English hearts that the world’s decades of peace had been shattered, and that the Prussian barbarians had struck their first blow at civilization.