This storm over, she felt better. Two cups of strong tea revived her spirits but not her voice. She could only whisper as she said: “Dave, please take me home, back to the farm.” “At this hour of the night?” Dave stared. “I’ll have a car for you at once,” said the kindly gray-haired uncle. “Dave, my boy, London’s no place for a girl who has gone through what this girl has tonight.” All the way home Dave had an arm about Cherry. She cuddled close to him, as a scared child would and they were not ashamed. Arrived at the farm, they quietly dismissed the driver. Arousing no one, they sat before the half-burned-out kitchen fire for a time. When at last Dave felt the trembling quiver of her shoulders pass away, he said huskily: “You’d better turn in for a little sleep.” “Dave,” she whispered. “My voice is gone. I can’t sing any more.” “Fright. That’s all.” Dave tried to reassure her. “It will come back.” Would it? He wondered as he watched her make her way slowly, dreamily, like a sleep-walker, up the stairs. _Chapter_ XIII Lull Before the Storm Until one P. M. the next day Cherry was lost to the world. At last she stirred beneath her rare old English blankets, opened her eyes, stared about her, tried to remember, then began trying to forget. In slippers and bathrobe she crept down to the kitchen where the cook served her with very strong tea and a small, delicious meat pie. After that she curled up in the big chair before the fire and once again fell asleep. It was only on the morning of the second day that she found courage to face life as it was. The home in London in which she had been given royal welcome was gone. She could barely whisper. Would her voice come back? What of her people there in the subway? The little Irish girl, the Scotch fiddler, and all the rest, were they carrying on? “Yes,” she assured herself as a fresh glow of hope overflowed her being, “They are right there doing their bit.” Breakfast over, with Flash at her heels, she once again led her small flock of sheep out to the frostbitten, sunlit pasture. There, after spreading a blanket on a rock, she lay for a long time staring up at the sun. It seemed to her, at that moment, that all that terrible war was but a bad dream, that it never had happened, that all the world was as much at peace as was her sunny pasture. The drone of airplane motors, followed by machine-guns tearing at the sky drove this illusion from her mind. The war was real, terribly real. It must be faced with eyes open and mind alert. It was there on the rock that her brother found her. “So they drove you out of London? The dirty Huns!” he exclaimed, dropping to a seat beside her. “Cherry!” There were lines of fierce determination in his face, “I’m going to join up with the Royal Air Force.”