voice rose at the end in angry protest. The look of scorn that
blazed from under his gray eye-brows was withering in its intensity.
Pen, who was sufficiently familiar with the history of the civil war
to know what lay in his grandfather's mind, answered quickly but
quietly:

"I am going to Canada to enlist."

"To--to what? Enlist?"

"Yes; in the American Legion; to fight under the Union Jack in
France."

A pillar stood near by, and the colonel backed up against it for
support. The shock of the surprise, the sudden revulsion of feeling,
left him nerveless.

"And you--you are going to war?"

He could not quite believe it yet. He wanted confirmation.

"Yes, grandfather; I'm going to war. I couldn't stay out of it. Until
my own country takes up arms I'll fight under another flag. When she
does get into it I hope to fight under the Stars and Stripes."

A wonderful look came into the old man's face, a look of pride, of
satisfaction, of unadulterated joy. His mouth twitched as though he
desired to speak and could not. Then, suddenly, he thrust out his one
arm and seized Pen's hand in a mighty and affectionate grip. In that
moment the sorrow, the bitterness, the estrangement of years vanished,
never to return.

"I am proud of you, sir!" he said. "You are worthy of your illustrious
ancestors. You are maintaining the best traditions of Bannerhall."

"I'm glad you're pleased, grandfather."

"Pleased is too mild an expression. I am rejoiced. It is the proudest
moment of my life." He stepped away from the pillar, straightened his
shoulders, and gazed benignantly on his grandson. "Not that I
especially desire," he added after a moment, "that you should be
subjected to the hazards and the hardships of a soldier's life. That
goes without saying. But it is the hazards and the hardships he faces
that make the soldier a hero. Death itself has no terrors for the
patriotic brave. '_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._'"

His eyes wandered away into some alluring distance and his thought
into the fields of memory, and for a moment he was silent. Nor did Pen
speak. He felt that the occasion was too momentous, the event too
sacred to be spoiled by unnecessary words from him.

It was the colonel who at last broke the silence.

"It is not an opportune time," he said, "to speak of the past. But, as
to the future, you may rest in confidence. While you are absent your
mother shall be looked after. Her every want shall be suppli