The life of the Byrdsnest centered about Stefan; every one thought first of him and his needs. Next in order of consideration came Ellie and little Rosamond. Then Lily had to be remembered. She must not be overworked; she must take enough time off. Henrik, too, must not be over-conscientious. He must allow Mary to relieve him often enough. As for the Sparrow, she must not wear herself out flying in three directions at once. She must not tire her eyes learning typewriting. But at this point Mary's commands were apt to be met with contempt. “Now, Mary Byrd,” the Sparrow would chirp truculently, “you 'tend to your business, and let me 'tend to mine. Anybody would think that we were all to save ourselves in this house but you. As for my typing, it's funny if I can't save you something on those miserable stenographers' bills.” Mary was wonderfully happy in these days--happier in a sense than she had ever been, for she had found, beyond all question, the full work for hands to do. And to her love for her children there was added not merely her maternal tenderness for Stefan, but a deep and growing admiration. For Stefan was changed not only in the body, but in the spirit. Everybody remarked it. The fierce fires of war seemed to have burnt away his old confident egotism. In giving himself to France he had found more than he had lost; for, by a strange paradox, in the midst of death he had found belief in life. “Mary, my beautiful,” he said to her one day in September, as he worked at an adjustable drawing board which swung across his knees, “did you ever wonder why all my old pictures used to be of rapid movement, nearly all of running or flying?” “Yes, dearest, I used to try often to think out the significance of it.” They were in the studio. Mary had just dropped her pencil after a couple of hours' work on a new serial she was writing. She often worked now in Stefan's room. He was busy with a series of drawings of the war. He had tried different media--pastel, ink, pencils, and chalks--to see which were the easiest for sedentary work. “It's good-bye to oils,” he had said, “I couldn't paint a foot from the canvas.” Now he was using a mixture of chalk and charcoal, and was in the act of finishing the sixth drawing of his series. The big doors of the barn were opened wide to the sunny lawn, gay with a riot of multicolored dahlias. “It's odd,” said Stefan, pushing away his board and turning the wheels of his chair so that he faced the brilliant stillness of the garden, “but I seem never to have understood my work till now. I used always to paint flight partly because it was beautiful in itself but also, I think, with some hazy notion that swift creatures could always escape from the ugliness of life.” Mary came and sat by him, taking his hand.