a long journey. In time she
arrived at the place where he had been. But it was too late. He was
gone. All that was left was an unmarked mound in a field of mounds.
Since that time there had been for her nothing but graves. Just then
the lines were closely drawn, and before she could get back through
them she had heard from the woman that her child was dead of a
pestilence that had broken out, and she herself dying. So she was
left. In her loneliness she had turned to her father. She could go to
him. He, too, was dead. The war had killed him. His property had
melted away. The old home had passed from his hands and he himself had
gone, one of the unnamed and unnumbered victims.

When at length the war had closed the widowed and childless woman had
gone back to where she had left her child, to find at least its grave.
But even this was denied her. There had been a pestilence, and in war
so many are falling that a child's death makes no difference except to
those who love it. The mother could not find even the grave to put a
flower on.

Since that time she had lived alone--always alone except for the
memories of the past. Her gift with her needle enabled her to make
enough to keep body and soul together. But her heart hungered for that
it had lost.

Of late her memories had gone back much to her girlhood; when she had
walked among the fruit trees with the lambs frisking and the birds
singing about her. She had bought the mocking-bird to sing to her. It
bore her back to the time when her lover had walked beside her; and
there had been no thought of war, with its blood and its graves. She
tried to blot out that dreadful time; to obliterate it from her memory;
to bridge it over, except for the memory of her child--with its touch,
its voice, its presence. Always that called her, and she prayed--if
she only might find its grave.

For this she had come back once more to the place where she had left
it, and where she knew its grave was. She had not found it; but had
put flowers on many unmarked little mounds; and had blessed with her
tender eyes many unknown little crippled children.

The mention of the crippled girl had opened her heart. And now when
she lifted her head she was in some sort comforted. She rose and took
up her bundle, and once more went down into the street. She determined
to go and see the little crippled child who had let her bird go.

She could not go, however, till next day, and