"She'll never be lonesome here," was Dick's first thought at the sight of her flying across the lawn to meet the car, a half dozen dogs at her heels. And his second thought, as they stopped and she stood beside them, was her father's description of the months before--"so slight and fine and free-moving." She was all that--and beautiful, too--a girl of twenty-four, dark hair and eyes, a high-bred face of delicate features, its fine coloring heightened by her romp with the dogs and set off by a sweater and tam as nearly the shade of her cheeks as wool could imitate. She gave a warm, firm hand to Dick, and looking him frankly in the eye, said: "Father has told me about you. I am glad you have come to see us." There was no question of being at home with her. She had so simply and sweetly taken him in that it was as if he had always known her. It seemed entirely natural to be walking up to the house with her, to stop on the veranda and look over the valley, lying now brown and gray with the broad river glittering through it; to go in to tea before the great open fire; to talk of all sorts of things, the latest war news, Reuben Cowder's day in town, the dogs, the telephone talks she had with Patsy, who was coming out Sunday afternoon with her father and mother, her meeting with Patsy in London two and a half years ago, the Boys' Club, Nikola, whom she had run out to see in the morning--"her first morning, too," thought Dick, with a glow of something like pride. In the hour, which Dick was always to remember in its every detail, there was but one alarm. It was when Nancy suddenly asked: "But how about Otto, Father. Did you see him? Isn't he here? I thought surely he would telephone me." Dick thought she looked a little hurt, and he knew Reuben Cowder evaded when he answered, with a quick and warning look at him, "He's in New York probably. I didn't ask about him, I was so busy. I will telephone if you wish," but Nancy said, "No, he must be away or he would have been out."