away from
me!"

And when the flag was completed, save for sewing the stars upon the blue
ground, she took it away from the others and insisted upon finishing
the work herself. To her own room she carried it, and each of the white
stars that the young men of Rouen were to follow in the struggle that
would add so many others to the constellation, was jewelled with her
tears and kissed by her lips as it took its place with its brothers.
Never were neater stitches taken, for, with every atom of her body
yearning to receive the shot that was destined for Crailey, this quiet
sewing was all that she could do! She would have followed him, to hold a
parasol over him under the dangerous sun, to cook his meals properly,
to watch over him with medicines and blankets and a fan; she would have
followed barefoot and bareheaded, and yet, her heart breaking with the
crucial yearning to mother him and protect him, this was all that she
could for him, this small stitching at the flag he had promised to
follow.

When the work was quite finished, she went all over it again with
double thread, not facing the superstition of her motive, which was to
safeguard her lover: the bullet that was destined for Crailey might, in
the myriad chances, strike the flag first and be deflected, though never
so slightly, by one of these last stitches, and Crailey's heart thus
missed by the same margin. It was at this juncture, when the weeping
of women was plentiful, when old men pulled long faces, and the very
urchins of the street observed periods of gravity and even silence, that
a notion entered the head of Mrs. Tanberry--young Janie Tanberry--to the
effect that such things were all wrong. She declared energetically that
this was no decent fashion of farewell; that after the soldiers went
away there would be time enough to enact the girls they had left behind
them; and that, until then, the town should be made enlivening. So she
went about preaching a revival of cheerfulness, waving her jewelled
hand merrily from the Carewe carriage to the volunteers she saw upon the
street, calling out to them with laughter and inspiring quip; everywhere
scolding the mourners viciously in her husky voice, and leaving so much
of heartening vivacity in her wake that none could fail to be convinced
that she was a wise woman.

Nor was her vigor spent in vain. It was decided that a ball should be
given to the volunteers of Rouen two nights before their departure for
the S