ficers, and there's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't think
how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the old college buildings used
for barracks. Dick says it's much livelier than it was when he was a
student there."

"I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the professor. "Does he find
plenty of volunteers?"

"Well, you know," the young girl explained, "that the old style of
volunteering is all over."

"No, I didn't know it."

"Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, and they do say that it
will come to the draft very soon, now. Some of the young men have gone
to Canada. But everybody despises _them_. Oh, Mrs. Elmore, I should
think you'd be _so_ glad to have the professor off here, and honorably
out of the way!"

"I'm _dis_honorably out of the way; I can never forgive myself for not
going to the war," said Elmore.

"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody feels that way about it
_now_! As Dick Burton says, we've come down to business. I tell you,
when you see arms and legs off in every direction, and women going about
in black, you don't feel that it's such a romantic thing any more. There
are mighty few engagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets off;
no presentation of revolvers in the town hall; and some of the widows
have got married again; and that I don't think _is_ right. But what can
they do, poor things? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs. Elmore?"

"Tom Friar's _widow_! Is Tom Friar _dead_?"

"Why, of course! One of the first. I think it was Ball's Bluff. Well,
_she's_ married. But she married his cousin, and as Dick Burton says,
that isn't so bad. Isn't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing _all_ her
boys,--all five of them? It does seem to bear too hard on _some_
families. And then, when you see every one of those six Armstrongs going
through without a scratch!"

"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at a standstill. The streets
must look rather dreary."

"_Business_ at a standstill!" exclaimed Lily. "What _has_ Sue been
writing you all this time? Why, there never was such prosperity in
Patmos before! Everybody is making money, and people that you wouldn't
hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and inviting the old
college families. You ought to see the residences and business blocks
going up all over the place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now.
You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore?"

"Mr. Haskell's clerk?"

"Yes. Well, he's made a fortune out