ard,' she murmured. 'You've a-been - you've a-been very thoughtful and kind. Though I did have so much to suffer here I don't seem to have the same feelin' about thic place as I'd have about home, or Granma's house at Riverton.'

'Ah!' agreed Solomon. 'I d' 'low you would n't like the thought o' goin' back to Riverton. I can understand that. An' 't is naitral ye would n't like to go home neither not jist now. But I'm I'm only too thankful for ye to bide here, Miss Rosie.'

"Thank ye, Mr. Blanchard,' said Rosie.

She moved to another coop, dabbing down a spoonful of meal in front of its occupants, and then said with a nervous little laugh: 'You do seem to understand all I do feel, Mr. Blanchard. I s'pose 't is along o' your havin' had the same kind o' trouble when you was my age.'

The farmer strolled after her to yet another coop before he answered:

'Well, it mid seem a strange thing to you, but I have n't thought so much o' wold times lately.'

'Have n't ye, Mr. Blanchard?' said Rosie, straightening herself and gazing back at him with a heightened color. 'No,' said Solomon bravely. 'I'll not deceive you, my maid I have not.'

'You were altogether took up helpin' me an' Rufe,' said Rosie pensively. "There, I did name him again what I did swear I'd never do. I do thank 'ee for all what ye did want to do for us both, Mr. Blanchard; an' now I be goin' for to put en out o' my head. I'll try to think 't is a bad dream what I've awoke up from.'

'Do, my dear,' said Solomon hastily. He turned away then, somewhat to Rosie's disappointment, for she had

found the conversation interesting having, indeed, been a prey to the dull, Iwonesome feeling of which Mrs. Bond had spoken during the previous days.

She asked her grandmother suddenly that afternoon if it would not be advisable to let Dad know she was not coming home just yet.

'If he do chance to hear how things. have turned out,' she added, 'he mid be sending for me.'

'He mid,' said Granma judicially. 'Well, of course there's no need for ye to go back jist yet. I'll drop en a line an' say so.'

These are the terms in which she couched her letter:

Dear Son George,-The strawbery jam have turned out as I did think. The maid is feeling terrible sick now, but I think she'll be better soon. Best leave her where she is till the cure works.

From your dear Mother.

P.S.-The raskil have been kicked out.

In spite of Mrs. Bond's frequent and somewhat indignant adjurations to 'Pluck up heart!' or 'Look alive!' the farmer's attitude continued to be diffident and a trifle constrained. Rosie's pale looks troubled him, and he tormented himself with the fear that she was lamenting Rufe's perfidy, and was perhaps still hankering for his presence. Once or twice, when the cold fit of depression was on him, he thought with a sort of alarm of his vigorous dealings with the offender, and wondered whether, if Rosie came to hear of them, she would ever forgive him. Women had turned before now on the men who sought to defend them or to avenge their wrongs. In spite of Mrs. Bond's optimistic letter, in fact, things did not seem to be progressing very favorably for the fulfilment of her wishes.

One evening Rosie lay wide awake long after Granma's gentle snoring

had denoted that she had fallen asleep and the farmer's heavy tread had passed their door as he sought his own chamber. She was thinking, with that ever-recurring sense of shame, over recent events, and lamenting the fact that there seemed to be nothing to look forward to in the future. Suddenly Carlo's furious barking attracted her attention. She sat up in bed. Except for the dog's protests, everything was very still. The outcry ceased, however, as quickly as it had begun, and as she strained her ears she thought she detected the sound of a light, cautious step. Acting on a sudden impulse, she sprang out of bed, thrust her bare feet into her shoes, and pulled on the long coat before mentioned. The moonlight streamed through the unshuttered staircase window as she opened the bedroom door, and creeping to it softly, she looked out.

There was a dark figure moving towards the big rick, the rick which had not been insured. Her heart stood still as she identified Rufe, and then bounded excitedly. Whatever might be Rufe's intention in coming thither at such an hour, she could not doubt that it was evil. Running swiftly downstairs, she opened, the house door. When she passed the kitchen she heard Carlo, who was shut up within, snuffing ecstatically under the door and thumping his tail. He had evidently recognized the midnight visitor. As she paused in the doorway a slight sound broke upon the stillness of the night-the unmistakable striking of a match. She crossed the yard in a second, and sprang upon Rufe's stooping figure just as a little jet of flame ran up the dry hay.

As Farmer Blanchard had already proved, it was no light matter when Rosie dropped on top of one, and

Rufe fell now, face downwards, beneath the onslaught. He struggled and fought as well as he could, uttering smothered oaths the while; but Rosie, twisting her hands in his collar and kneeling on his wriggling form, managed to keep him down beneath her solid weight while she screamed lustily for help.

In a minute Mrs. Bond's head was thrust through the window, and her shrill voice joined the outcry.

'Farmer, Farmer, the rick's afire, an' somebody's murderin' our Rosie!' Almost simultaneously, with a kind of roar, the farmer appeared upon the scene, and coming to Rosie's assistance, quickly overpowered her captive. 'Dalled if it is n't Rufe!' he exclaimed. 'Has he hurt ye, maid?'

'He bit my arm,' said Rosie, rising to her feet.

'Ye dalled ruffian, I've a mind to finish ye off for this!' cried Solomon, shaking Rufe till his teeth chattered in his head. In the bright moonlight he could see the blood trickling down the girl's arm as she pulled up her sleeve to examine her injuries.

'Had n't ye best tie en up an' save the rick, Mr. Blanchard?' she said. 'It'll take we all our time.'

She darted to the barn as she spoke, emerging with a rake, with which she proceeded to comb down such burning wisps of hay as she could reach. But little threads of fire began to run round beneath the tarpaulin which luckily had been tightly tied down over the upper portion of the stack.

'Let me go!' pleaded Rufe inarticulately. 'Let me go, an' I'll swear I'll never trouble any o' ye again.'

'No, my bwoy,' said Solomon grimly. I've got ye now, an' I'll not let go of ye till ye're put under lock an' key. We know what your swearin's worth.'

Mrs. Bond, clad in weird attire, opportunely appeared upon the scene and thrust a length of washing-line into the farmer's hand.

'I'll tie his lags,' she said, 'if you'll manage his arms.'

Solomon obligingly sat on Rufe's legs while she made them secure, and simultaneously bound the lad's wrists together behind his back. Then, dragging his victim a little farther from the stack in case the fire gained ground, he ran up a ladder with a bucket which he had hastily filled at the pump.

'Ye mid pop up the road an' call 'Lias!' he cried out to Mrs. Bond. 'If you'll fetch another bucket, maidie, an' wet your side of the stack, I'll keep this one going.'

He ran up and down the ladder with amazing nimbleness, while Rosie pumped and soused the water with equal speed and vigor. The fire, which had, in truth, never really taken hold, was already put out by the time Mrs. Bond returned with Elias.

As Rosie stood watching the further precautionary measures which the farmer thought it necessary to take, Rufe called to her in a low voice from his uneasy couch on the cobblestones.

'Let I go, Rosie. Cut thic rope, if only for the sake o' what's passed between us.'

'Nay,' said Rosie, 'I'll not let ye go. You'm treecherous through an' through, Rufe; you'm best under lock an' key. "Tidden't along o' the way ye sarved me, but to think o' you doin' this to the master what was so good to ye. I can't forgive that.'

'Good to me!' exclaimed Rufe. 'He very nearly broke every bone in my body.'

'Did he?' interrupted Rosie with gratified surprise. 'I d' 'low ye did deserve it.'

'He did,' growled Rufe. He'd ha'

liked to ha' killed I. He do want 'ee for hisself, that's why.'

'Well, an' if I do,' cried Solomon, appearing unexpectedly from behind them, 'an' I'll not deny it - ye've a-had your chance.'

'An' you'll be ready to swear again me in the court!' cried Rufe, his glance flashing from the farmer to the girl.

"True!' said Solomon, suddenly struck; and turning to the girl: 'I was n't thinkin' o' that. It would be onpleasant for 'ee.'

'I'm not afeard,' said Rosie simply. The village policeman now up, having been summoned by Elias, who assisted him to march the culprit off, Solomon obligingly releasing his legs for the purpose. When they had gone Solomon turned to the girl.

'You'm a brave maid!' he said.

He held out his hand, and Rosie laid hers in it. He shook it and then held it fast.

'Ye heard what thic chap did say?' he asked in a low voice. "T was true. I d' 'low 't was what I wanted all along, though I did n't know it — but I would n't ha' interfered anyways. But now he's had his chance. Would there ever be a chance for me?'

For the second time within a few weeks Granma put pen to paper:

Dear Son George,- All's well what ends well. Ye'll be reading on the paper about Rufe being took up, and now I have the pleasure of telling ye as everything's settled between Solomon Blanchard and Rosie. There'll be a Bond at the Glebe Farm again, an' my words have come true. They did n't know their own minds, but they do now, and you did never see martal pair so happy. Bless their hearts, they do think they've done it all themselves, but you and me knows different.

From your dear Mother.

P.S.-You mid pick me out a few nice potatoes. I'll be shifting to Riverton after the wedding.

'My lad's in France, in the thick of the fight. I may hear any minute as he is killed,' a woman declared, one day last March, sobbing pitiably the while.

It was just when things were at the worst on the Western Front; and her son was at Salonika, and had been there for ages. That she knew, of course; but then Salonika is one of 'them there forrin parts'; and for her, as for many of her kind, all 'forrin parts' alike are France just now.

'He'll never come back. I shall never see him again, shall never even see where he lies; they'll bury him out there in France,' another woman announced, that same day, with the ring of firm conviction in her voice.

It was of her husband she spoke; and he was in Africa at the time, in a region where, the chances are, no fighting at all was going on.

These women were both in the Slough of Despond: they had lost all hope, had not a shred of doubt left but that the men whom they loved were face to face with death, if not already among the dead. Yet all the time, had they but known it, their men were every whit as safe as they themselves were, as far out of harm's way. And as it was with these women, so was it with legions more, in those terrible days when the Germans seemed to be sweeping all before them in the West. At every turn I came across mothers and wives who were eating out their very hearts because their sons or husbands were, as they thought, in dire peril, with the enemy

on every side showering down on them balls as hailstones. And almost as often as not, the said sons and husbands were, I found, in no special danger just then, miles away from the fighting line, even if in France at all.

To nervous, anxious women, all who wear khaki, if their own sons or husbands, are soldiers, it must be remembered, men out to fight, men whom the Huns are out to slaughter. In their eyes ambulance men, labor men, men who never leave the base, are, if their own men, all on a par, so far as danger goes, with flying men, dispatch-bearers, shock troops. They are all in every battle, all in the first battle-line. During the great attack last March, thousands and thousands of women, a fair number of men, too, after working hard through the day, kept watch through the night, night after night, too wretched to sleep, because of the visions they had of those near to them lying on battlefields all covered with blood. And very many of them might have slept quite comfortably had there been someone at hand to tell them the truth, to bring home to them the fact that a soldier may be abroad and not in France; in France, and not in the fighting line; that a man may wear khaki, yet never fight, never do anything more dangerous than make a road; someone, too, to make them realize that a man may be alive, even though a comrade writes home that he has seen him fall; and that casualties do not necessarily mean deaths. I once came across a crowd in great

distress before an office where, among the latest-news telegrams posted up, was one: Casualties 1500,' or some such number. Most of these people had never a doubt but that 1500 men had been killed, and among them of course their own relatives. And I had the greatest difficulty in convincing them that it was otherwise. It seems terribly hard that, in such days as these, when so many are stricken and must therefore suffer, so many more should suffer unnecessarily, merely because they cannot understand official dispatches, cannot read

news

papers or see any meaning in maps.

'Yes, I can read, but I can't read newspapers. I can't make out what they're after with all them long words,' an old woman informed me fretfully, the other day. "They tell me as how they're the names of places, but how can there be such a place as that?'

She had a sheet of newspaper before her, and pointed as she spoke to Cortellazzo.

'In Italy,' she repeated after me wonderingly. 'And there's fighting there?' she continued. 'I did hear as there was fighting in the Holy Land. But now, what is that? H.H.Q. with dots between? I sees that everywhere and it drives me fair silly; for there ain't no meaning in it. And it's in France, you see, just about where my Bill is, as like as not.'

This old woman is more lucky than many of her class; for she can read, in a way, whereas they perhaps cannot, not even all the fairly young among them. They were never great hands at reading, and have forgotten what they knew, or their eyes have failed them. For them, therefore, even more than for her a newspaper is a blank, it tells them nothing. Nor does even a letter from a soldier husband or son, unfailing source of delight

though it be, tell them much more, unless they have at hand some near friend or relation who has not forgotten what she learned at school; for they are very chary, most of them, of allowing mere neighbors to read their letters, or even to know that they cannot read them themselves. Besides sometimes weeks go by without ever a letter arriving. Thus, although they think and talk of nothing but the war, they have no means of knowing how the war is going, what official news there is. Practically they are dependent for their news on what they pick up while at work, or in tramcars, shops, queues, streetcorner crowds, on chance rumors, indeed lying rumors, as most rumors

are.

Now, no matter how depressing official news may be, lying rumors are always more depressing still, more gloomy, more fraught with forebodings of disaster. Since the war began, I have heard many lying rumors, and the only one among them that could claim to bring good tidings was that telling of the trains full of Russian soldiers on their way from Scotland to France. And that would not have survived twenty-four hours had not those in authority taken measures to insure that it should. Of all the rest, not one was of the cheering, hope-inspiring sort; not one told of British victories, enemy cities captured, Berlin in flames. Most of them, indeed, were of the sort that, had they been true, would have set the enemy's joy-bells a-ringing, and made the Kaiser rend the very heavens with his triumphant cries. And the chances are the very worst of them all, the most sensationally gloomy, never reached me.

In the early days of the war, when everything depended on the navy, again and again there were rumors