"You can't ladle the sea dry with a limpet-shell, Ralph, nor carry off a mountain in your pocket. No, no; let us not talk about the impossible, nor give up hope until we are forced to. Perhaps young Seccombe will recover." "But if he should die, father. What would happen then?" "I don't know, my boy, and I can't bear to think." "But we'd better face the possibility," Ralph answered doggedly, "so that, if the worst should come to the worst, we may know just where we are." "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" David answered, with a far-away look in his eyes. And he got up from his seat and walked slowly out of the house. Ralph sat looking out of the window for several minutes, and then he went off in search of his mother and Ruth. "Do you know, mother," he said, as cheerily as he could, "that I have had no breakfast yet? And, in spite of the bad news, I am too hungry for words." "Had no breakfast?" she said, lifting up her hands in surprise. "I made sure you got something to eat before you went out." "Well, then, you were wrong for once," he said, laughing. "Now, please put me out of my misery as quickly as possible." "Ah, Ralph," she answered, with a sigh, "if we had no worse misery than hunger, how happy we should be!" "That is so, mother," he said, with a laugh. "Hunger is not at all bad when you have plenty to eat." She sighed again. "It is well that you young people don't see far ahead of you," she said plaintively. "But come here and get your breakfast." Two hours later, when in the home close hoeing turnips, he lifted his head and saw his father coming across the fields from the direction of St. Goram, he straightened his back at once and waited. He knew that he had been to see the parson to get the latest and fullest news. David came slowly on with his eyes upon the ground, as if buried in profound thought. "Well, father, what news?" Ralph questioned, when his father came within speaking distance. David started as though wakened out of a reverie, and came to a full stop. Then a pathetic smile stole over his gentle face, and he came forward with a quickened step. "I waited for the parson to get a reply from the War Office, or I should have been home sooner," he said, bringing out the words slowly and painfully. "Well?" Ralph questioned, though he felt sure, from his father's manner, what the answer would be. "The parson fears the worst," David answered, bringing out the words in jerks. "Poor man! He's in great trouble. I almost forgot my own when I thought of his." "But what was the news he got from the War Office?" Ralph questioned. "Not much. He's on the list of the dangerously wounded, that's all." "But he may recover," Ralph said, after a pause. "Yes, he may," David answered, with a sigh. "God alone knows, but the parson gave me no comfort at all." "How so?"