"And how it has been 'dingin' in my ears these days to fairly deeve me," as Tremendous K. would say. "The bugle calls it every morning when the boys march out on the campus. I see it in every headline of the paper; I hear it in every call for men, and I'm afraid I haven't wanted to listen. I have wanted my life to run along a smooth road, the one I have planned for myself; a fine church with a big salary, plenty of time to study and a little to travel, and you sitting in the Manse pew with the best silk dress in the church. That has been my programme. But the pleasant road was not the way the Master went, and the servant cannot choose. He trod the hard way, and there is not the slightest doubt in my mind which way He wants me to go. I know you are guessing already at what I am going to ask of you. And now I must turn upon you with your own slogan and say, 'Mothers must be brave!' Oh, how brave and gallant they must be in these days, only they can know. But I know you, Mother, well enough to tell that you will say yes when I ask you to be brave enough to let me enlist. It is not a matter of choice with me, I am constrained. Woe is me if I go not to Belgium!" "I wish I could say this is all I am asking you to give up. Is it too much that we ask you to let Sandy go, too? He is more eager than I and saw his duty clearly from the first. We both realise that yours is the hardest part. But your sons couldn't be slackers. And after all the war may not last so long, and we'll be home before you know it. Sandy will likely be a general, and who knows but I may get to be a lance-corporal!" There was more in the same light strain and a note for Christina from Sandy, saying he was taking the officers' course and she must remember when he came home to say "sir" to him when she addressed him. But Christina did not read the letter through at first. When the full meaning of it burst upon her she turned to her mother, expecting to see tears, but instead her mother's small bent figure had grown suddenly straight and her eyes were shining with a strange mingling of pride and anguish. "Oh, Mother!" cried Christina, "oh, don't I wish I were a boy!" "Whisht, whisht!" cried her mother, "I could ill spare you, Christine, I can ill spare the lads." And then she rose and went quietly into the bedroom and shut the door, and Christina knew that her mother had gone for strength to bear this trial to the source of all power. When Wallace came up the hill the next evening, he found the Lindsays in a state of subdued excitement. Christina's cheeks were crimson and her eyes shone until she looked positively handsome. "Sandy and Neil are both going to the war," she cried half in dismay, half in exultation. "Are they really?" asked Wallace. "They're lucky. This beastly breakdown of mine has spoiled all my chances. My, I'd like to be in their boots!"