cheers--cheers that arose before them, swelled
away on either side and sank out of hearing behind them as they
marched--through faces bravely smiling, when the eyes were full of
tears; faces tense with love, anxiety, fear; faces sad with bitter
memories of the old war. On the end of the first rank was the boy Basil,
file-leader of his squad, swinging proudly, his handsome face serious
and fixed, his eyes turning to right nor left--seeing not his mother,
proud, white, tearless; nor Crittenden, with a lump of love in his
throat; nor even little Phyllis--her pride in her boy-soldier swept
suddenly out of her aching heart, her eyes brimming, and her
handkerchief at her mouth to keep bravely back the sob that surged at
her lips. The station at last, and then cheers and kisses and sobs, and
tears and cheers again, and a waving of hands and flags and
handkerchiefs--a column of smoke puffing on and on toward the
horizon--the vanishing perspective of a rear platform filled with jolly,
reckless, waving, yelling soldiers, and the tragedy of the parting was
over.

How every detail of earth and sky was seared deep into the memory of the
women left behind that afternoon--as each drove slowly homeward: for God
help the women in days of war! The very peace of heaven lay upon the
earth. It sank from the low, moveless clouds in the windless sky to the
sunlit trees in the windless woods, as still as the long shadows under
them. It lay over the still seas of bluegrass--dappled in woodland,
sunlit in open pasture--resting on low hills like a soft cloud of
bluish-gray, clinging closely to every line of every peaceful slope.
Stillness everywhere. Still cattle browsing in the distance; sheep
asleep in the far shade of a cliff, shadowing the still stream; even the
song of birds distant, faint, restful. Peace everywhere, but little
peace in the heart of the mother to whose lips was raised once more the
self-same cup that she had drained so long ago. Peace everywhere but for
Phyllis climbing the stairs to her own room and flinging herself upon
her bed in a racking passion of tears. God help the women in the days of
war! Peace from the dome of heaven to the heart of the earth, but a
gnawing unrest for Judith, who walked very slowly down the gravelled
walk and to the stiles, and sat looking over the quiet fields. Only in
her eyes was the light not wholly of sadness, but a proud light of
sacrifice and high resolve. Crittenden was coming that night.