of history? I
wonder. Terror and heroism and cruelty find self-sacrifice on a scale
which had never been dreamed, which will never, God grant, need to be
dreamed on this poor little racked planet again. Of course, there are
plenty of those people alive yet, and I've talked to many and they
remember it, all of them remember well, even those who were quite small.
And it has stirred me simply to look into the eyes of such an one and
consider that those eyes read such things as morning news. The great war
has had a hold on me since I first heard of it, and I distinctly
remember the day, from my father, at the age of seven.

"Can you remember when it happened, father?" I asked him. And then: "Can
you remember when they drove old people out of their houses--and killed
them?"

"Yes," said my father. And I burst into tears. And when I was not much
older he told me about Donald Cochrane, the boy who saved England.

It was not strange to my own mind that I could not talk commonplaces
now, when I had just spent an hour tailing to the man who had been that
historic boy--the very Donald Cochrane. I could not talk commonplaces.

Milly's leisurely voice broke my meditation. "I'm sorry that my cousin,
Virginia Fox, should have such bad manners, Lady Andover," she was
drawling. "She was brought up to speak when spoken to, but I think it's
the General who has hypnotized her. Virginia, did you know that Lady
Andover asked you--" And I came to life.

"It was Miss Fox who hypnotized the General, I fancy," said Lady Andover
most graciously, considering I had overlooked her existence a second
before. "He had a word for no one else during dinner." I felt myself go
scarlet; it had pleased the Marvelous Person, then, to like me a
little, perhaps for the youth and enthusiasm in me.

With that the men straggled into the room and the tall grizzled head of
my hero, his lined face conspicuous for the jagged, glorious scar,
towered over the rest. I saw the vivid eyes flash about, and they met
mine; I was staring at him, as I must, and my heart all but jumped out
of me when he came straight to where I stood, my back against the
bookcase.

"I was looking for you," he said simply.

Then he glanced over my head and his hand shot up in a manner of salute;
I turned to see why. I was in front of the portrait of Lord Kitchener.

"Did you know him, General Cochrane?" I asked.

"Know him?" he demanded, and the gray glance plunged out at me from
unde