In closing let me renew my assurance of our deep gratitude for the special service you so nobly rendered when fiendish danger threatened my daughter. We shall always regard you as a gentleman of the highest type. Very respectfully yours, CHARLES WEST. Percy read this letter hurriedly to the end, and then slowly reread it. His mother noticed that he absent-mindedly replaced the letter in the envelope instead of reading it to her as was his custom. However, he laid the letter by her plate and talked with her about the corn-shelling which was to begin as soon as the corn sheller could be brought from the neighbor's where Percy had been helping to haul the corn from the sheller to elevator at Winterbine. Dinner finished, he hurried out to complete the preparations for the afternoon's work. We have no right to follow him. His mother only saw that he went to the little granary where a few loads of corn were to be stored for future use. Yes, she saw that he closed the door as he entered. Not even his mother could see her son again a child. Women and children weep, not men. The heart strings draw tight and tighter until they tear or snap. The body is racked with the anguish of the mind. The form reels and sinks to the floor. The head bows low. Pent up tears fall like rain.--No, that cannot be. Men do not shed tears. If they are mental cowards and physical brutes they pass from hence by a short and easy route and leave the burdens of life to their wives and mothers and disgraced families. If they are Christian men they seek the only source of help. Mrs. Johnston watched and waited--it seemed an hour, but was only a quarter of that time till the granary door opened and she saw Percy pass to the barn with a step which satisfied her mother's eye. She drew out the letter, and from a life habit of making sure, pressed the envelope to see that it contained nothing more. She noted a slip of crumpled paper and drew it out. Upon it was written in a penciled scrawl: _"Her grandma has not consented."_ She read the letter, stood for a moment as in meditation, then replaced the slip and letter in the envelope, and laid it on Percy's desk. The letter was plainly a man's handwriting. The envelope was addressed in a bold hand that was clearly not Mr. West's writing. CHAPTER XXXIV PLANNING FOR LIFE HEART-OF-EGYPT, ILLINOIS, June 16, 1904. Mr. Charles West, Blue Mound, Va.