rgiven and
taken back. But such an application was not made. The winter days went
by, spring blossomed into summer, season followed season, and not yet
had the master of Bannerhall seen coming down the long, gray road to
the old home the figure of a sorrowful and suppliant boy.

When the world war began, his mind was diverted to some extent from
his sorrow. From the beginning his sympathies had been with the
Allies. Old soldier that he was he could not denounce with sufficient
bitterness the spirit of militarism that seemed to have run rampant
among the Central Powers. At the invasion of Belgium and at the
mistreatment of her people, especially of her women and children, at
the bombardment of the cathedral of Rheims, at the sinking of the
_Lusitania_, at the execution of Edith Cavell, at all the outrages of
which German militarism was guilty, he grew more and more indignant
and denunciatory. His sense of fairness, his spirit of chivalry, his
ideas of honorable warfare and soldierly conduct were inexpressibly
shocked. The murder of sleeping women and children in country villages
by the dropping of bombs from airships, the suffocation of brave
soldiers by the use of deadly gases, the hurling of liquid fire into
the ranks of a civilized enemy; these things stirred him to the
depths. He talked of the war by day, he dreamed of it at night. He
chafed bitterly at the apparent attempt of the Government at
Washington to preserve the neutrality of this country against the most
provoking wrongs. It was our war, he declared, as much as it was the
war of any nation in Europe, and it was our duty to get into it for
the sake of humanity, at the earliest possible moment and at any cost.
His intense feeling and profound conviction in the matter led finally
to his determination to make the trip to New York and Washington in
order to present his views and make his recommendations, and to offer
his services in person, in quarters where he believed they would be
welcomed and acted on. So he went on what appeared to his daughter to
be the most preposterous errand he had ever undertaken.

He returned even sooner than she had expected him to come. In response
to his telegram she sent the carriage to the station to meet him on
the arrival of the afternoon train. When she heard the rumbling of the
wheels outside she went to the door, knowing that it would require her
best effort to cheerfully welcome the disappointed, dejected and
enfeebled ol