ndow and her room. Doubtless she was thinking
at that very moment of him. His throat ached and tears came into his
eyes. The light, clear and red, shone steadily from the window and made
a band across the lawn.

He picked a handful of sand from the walk that led to the front door
and threw it against the window. He knew that she was brave and would
respond, but waiting only a moment or two he threw a second handful
fully and fairly against the glass.

The lower half of the window was thrown open and a head appeared, where
the moonlight fell clearly upon it. It was the head of a beautiful
woman, framed in thick, silken yellow hair, the eyes deep blue, and the
skin of the wonderful fairness so often found in that state. The face
was that of a woman about thirty-seven or eight years of age, and
without a wrinkle or flaw.

"Mother!" called Dick in a low voice as he stepped from the shadow of
the pillar.

There was a cry and the face disappeared like a flash from the window.
But he had only a few moments to wait. Her swift feet brought her from
the room, down the stairway, and along the hall to the door, which she
threw open. The next instant Mrs. Mason had her son in her arms.

"Oh, Dick, Dicky, boy, how did you come!" she exclaimed. "You were here
under my window, and I did not even know that you were alive!"

Her tears of joy fell upon his face and he was moved profoundly. Dick
loved his beautiful young mother devoutly, and her widowhood had bound
them all the more closely together.

"I've come a long distance, and I've come in many ways, mother," he
replied, "by train, by horseback, and I have even walked."

"You have come here on foot?"

"No, mother. I rode directly over your own smooth lawn on one of the
biggest horses you ever saw, and he's tied now between two of the pine
trees. Come, we must go in the house. It's too cold for you out here. Do
you know that the mercury is about ten degrees below zero."

"What a man you have grown! Why, you must be two inches taller than you
were, when you went away, and how sunburned and weather-beaten you are,
too! Oh, Dicky, this terrible, terrible war! Not a word from you in
months has got through to me!"

"Nor a word from you to me, mother, but I have not suffered so much so
far. I was at Bull Run, where we lost, and I was at Mill Spring, where
we won, but I was unhurt."

"Perhaps you have come back to stay," she said hopefully.

"No, mother, not to stay. I took a