emselves
fathers and mothers, the Sun Maid's joy was rudely broken.

Not only hers, but many another's; for a drumbeat echoed through the
land, and the sound was as a death-knell.

Kitty looked into her husband's face and shivered. For the first time
in all his memory of her the Unafraid grew timid.

"Oh, Gaspar! War? Civil War! A family quarrel, of all quarrels the
most bitter and deadly. God help us!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

HEROES.

The Sun Maid's gaze into her husband's face was a prolonged and
questioning one. Before it was withdrawn she had found her answer.

There was still a silence between them, which she broke at last, and
it touched him to see how pale she had become and yet how calm.

"You are going, Gaspar?"

"Yes, my love; I am going. Already I have pledged my word, as my arm
and my purse."

"But, my dear, do you consider? We are growing old, even we, who have
never yet had time to realize it--till now. There are younger men,
plenty of them. Your counsels at home----"

"Would be empty words as compared to my example in the field. The
young of heart are never old. Besides, do you remember that once,
against my stubborn will, you resisted for duty's sake? We have never
regretted it, not for a day. More than that, when our first-born came
to us, do you remember how we clasped his tiny hand and resolved
always to lead it onward to the right? _Lead_ it, sweetheart. We
vowed never to say to him: 'Go!' to this or that high duty; but
rather, still holding fast to him, say: 'Come.' There is such a wide,
wide difference between the two."

Then, indeed, again she trembled. The mother love shook her visibly
and a secret rejoicing died a sudden death.

"'Come,' you say. But they are not here, in our own unhappy land.
Gaspar in Europe, Winthrop in South America, and Hugh in Japan. They
are better so."

"Are they better there? You will be the first to say 'no' when this
shock passes. A telegram will summon each as easily as we could call
them from that other room--supposing that they, your sons, wait for
the call. But they'll not. I know them and trust them. They are
already on the railways and steamships that will bring them fastest;
and it will truly be the 'Come with me!' that we elected, for we shall
all march together."

So they did; and it was the Sun Maid herself, standing proudly among
her daughters and daughters-in-law, yet more beautiful than any, who
fastened the last glittering button ov