“Hit’d be a powerful fine thing for everybody,” said Granny Williams after a time of silence. “Now, Davy—he’s so _odd_, Ma’am. I’ve seen Davy Joslin set like he was in a dream. If only men wasn’t so cantankerous!” CHAPTER XXVIII THE EDUCATION OF DAVID JOSLIN THE hours dragged leaden for the women, cooped up, silent, as in the old block-house days, but for the men the great adventure of going out to war, born in their ancient Highland blood, sped the time rapidly enough. It cost a certain resolution on the part of David Joslin to call upon the “furrin woman,” but now he must say good-by. Therefore in time he knocked at the door of Granny Williams’ log house. Marcia Haddon herself met him, as though she had sent for him. “Come,” said she. But she led him not into the house itself. He walked at her side, silent, as she directed her footsteps toward the little steps cut into the foot of the hill. They sat here, both looking out now across the valley to the hills beyond. The woman’s gray eyes were wistful and sad. The eyes of the man, resting everywhere but upon her face, were also sad. He did not turn to look at her at all—apparently did not note the increasing goodliness of her figure and her rounder contours, the browner coloring of her cheek. She was a very comely woman, Marcia Haddon, young, but wiser than she once had been—more impulsive also, less cold, less reserved. It was as though she entered a new stage of womanhood, as yet denied her in her chill years of self-repression. Never until now had she really known the awakening of woman. Virginal, warming, fluttering, she was not married woman or widow now; she was a girl, a girl at the brink of life. Oh! how vast and sweet the revealing Plan seemed now to her. “Well, you’re going out,” said she at last, the first to break the silence. “Yes, I’m going out.” His voice was low and deep. It seemed to her that she now for the first time realized its even vibrancy. At last: “What will become of the work here?” she began. “I can’t tell as to that, Mrs. Haddon,” said he. “It must wait.” She made no reply, and he went on: “You see, all my life has been pretty much the same thing. I’ve always had to look ahead and did not dare look at things between. Once this school up here on the hill was all I looked at—and there wasn’t anything between. There’s other work afoot that’s even bigger, now. Maybe after that I’ll be fit for this.” “You’ve done wonderfully well. It’s scarce less than a miracle—how you’ve got on.” “At least I’ve told you all about myself,” said he after a time. “I’ve nothing more to say—now or at any other time.” “You need say nothing,” she rejoined. “Life goes hard for all of us sometimes.” She was conscious of her banality, but found herself, as so often, dumb in her largest emotions. “It was a hard enough start,” he assented. “It’s hard enough for all of us in here. I’m not so old.”