off to survey her, both her hands still in
his possession. "I've always wanted to do that and now I've done it. I
feel better."

Everybody laughed at that not because what he said was so very
amusing as because their hearts were so full of joy to have the
irrepressible youngest Holiday at home again after the long anxious
weeks of his absence.

Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth's ear, "Gee! But I'm
glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley
is some peach of a cousin, I'm telling you, though I'm confoundedly
glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast
clear for Larry."

He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words
as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers
met and each looked into the other's face, for once unashamed of the
emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to
recover speech.

"Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it
has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck
and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now.
Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close
to me lately especially since I've been in this war business." Then
seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old
man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever
happens. You know yourself death isn't so much--not such a horrible
calamity as we talk as if it were."

"I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I
can't seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn't
have gone."

"Don't let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself
before you know it and then I'd have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept
me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself.
I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and
when we have the Germans jolly well licked I'm coming home and find me as
pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry
her quick as lightning."

Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And
irrationally enough he found himself more than a little reassured and
comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and
have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done.

"And I say, Larry." Ted's voice wa