ast. I seem to have passed
many years since I sat with you at West Point and you made me feel how
young I was and how little I had seen of life. It was true, but now I
have seen life at its worst and its best. I have had too the education
of battle, the lessons read by thousands of deaths and all the many
temptations of camp life. I believe, and I can say it to you, I am the
better for it all, and think less and less of the man who was fool enough
to do what with more humility he will surely do once more, if it please
God that he come out of this terrible war alive.

"When you see me again, you will at least respect my years, for one lives
fast here, and the months seem years and the family Bible a vain record,
as I remember that the statement of births comes after the Apocrypha
which leaves room for doubt."--

Leila smiled. "How like him," she murmured.

"I said months. There are (there were once last week) minutes when one
felt an insolent contempt of death, although the bullets were singing by
like our brave hornets. Is that courage? I used as a boy to wonder how I
would feel in danger. Don't tell, but on going under fire I shiver, and
then am at once in quiet possession of all my capacities, whatever they
be worth. A man drops by my side--and I am surprised; then another--and I
am sure I won't be hit. But I _was_ three weeks ago in my leg! It made me
furious, and I still limp a bit. It was only a nip--a spent bullet. I
wanted to get at that anonymous rascal who did it.

"Do wire me, and write fully.

"Yours,
JOHN.

"P.S. I wonder where Tom McGregor is, and Pole's boy and Joe Grace, and
those Greys who went diverse ways. As you never talk of yourself when you
write those brief letters on notepaper the size of a postage stamp, you
might at least tell me all about these good people in Westways."

She telegraphed him, "Uncle Jim slightly wounded, is coming home. Will
write. Leila Grey."

About four in the afternoon of this July 14th Ann Penhallow kissed her
husband as he came up the porch steps. He was leaning heavily on Mark
Rivers's arm. He said, "It is quite a long time, Ann. How long is it?"
Then he shook off Rivers, saying, "I am quite well," and going by his
wife went through the open door, moving like one dazed. He stood still a
moment looking about him, turned back and speaking to his wife said, "I
understand now. At first it seemed strange to me and as if I had never
been here before. Ever feel that w