“You’ll spoil me if you wait on me too much,” protested Gretel, laughing. “We have to wait on ourselves at school. I’ve made my own bed every morning all winter.” Dora looked rather shocked. “Well, you won’t make your own bed here, that’s one sure thing,” she announced, with decision. “I don’t see why young ladies want to do their own work.” “I believe you have imbibed some of Higgins’s English ideas about young ladies,” laughed Gretel. “I never shall forget her horror when Percy and Barbara said I might go out by myself. ‘Such a proceeding had never been heard of in the Henglish Haristocracy.’ By the way, has any one heard from Higgins lately?” “Yes, Miss, Martha had a letter last week. She’s decided to stay on in England with her sister, whose two sons have been killed in the war. She asked to be respectfully remembered to all the family.” Gretel’s bright face clouded, and she suddenly laid down the brush with which she had been smoothing her hair, preparatory to going down to luncheon. “Two sons killed,” she exclaimed in horror. “Oh, Dora, how perfectly dreadful!” “Yes, it is dreadful,” agreed the maid, with a sigh, “and now this country’s gone in, it’s going to be worse still. Peter’s enlisted.” “Peter! Why, Dora, how could he? He isn’t seventeen yet.” “They wouldn’t have taken him if they’d known how young he was,” said Dora, not without some pride in her tone, “but he fibbed about his age, and they accepted him. Mother’s been crying her eyes out about his going, but Father says if a boy has got pluck enough to do a thing like that, he isn’t going to interfere. Peter’s at Camp Schuyler now, and he expects to be sent over any time. I wish you could see him in his uniform.” “I wish I could,” said Gretel, “but it does seem rather queer. Things are changing so fast. Why, it was only three or four years ago that Peter was just a mischievous little boy. Do you remember the night he and Lillie came to play and sing for me at Mrs. Marsh’s, and the grand row over the cream puffs?” Gretel laughed merrily over the childish recollection, but she was grave again in a moment. “I can’t think of Peter going to the war,” she said. “He is the first person I really know well who is actually going, and it seems to make it all so much more real. I am very sorry for your mother, Dora, and for all of you.” “We’re no worse off than thousands of others,” said Dora, philosophically. “Now do let me take off those heavy boots, Miss Gretel. They’re much too thick to wear in the house this hot day, and there’s a nice pair of slippers in the closet.” Gretel was still looking rather grave when she joined her sister-in-law at the luncheon table. But Mrs. Douaine was too busy and preoccupied herself to notice it. “I am so sorry to leave you on your first afternoon, Gretel,” she said, regretfully, “but I have no end of things to attend to before we leave for Washington. Do you mind staying at home, or would you rather come out with me?”