thought I recognized it, from 'Kidnapped.' This part of the world
is not as new to you as it is to me."

"No. I lived in Paris for several years when I was a student."

"What were you studying?"

"The violin."

"You are a musician?" Claude looked at him wonderingly.

"I was," replied the other with a disdainful smile, languidly
stretching out his legs in the heather.

"That seems too bad," Claude remarked gravely.

"What does?"

"Why, to take fellows with a special talent. There are enough of
us who haven't any."

Gerhardt rolled over on his back and put his hands under his
head. "Oh, this affair is too big for exceptions; it's universal.
If you happened to be born twenty-six years ago, you couldn't
escape. If this war didn't kill you in one way, it would in
another." He told Claude he had trained at Camp Dix, and had come
over eight months ago in a regimental band, but he hated the work
he had to do and got transferred to the infantry.

When they retraced their steps, the wood was full of green
twilight. Their relations had changed somewhat during the last
half hour, and they strolled in confidential silence up the
home-like street to the door of their own garden.

Since the rain was over, Madame Joubert had laid the cloth on the
plank table under the cherry tree, as on the previous evenings.
Monsieur was bringing the chairs, and the little girl was
carrying out a pile of heavy plates. She rested them against her
stomach and leaned back as she walked, to balance them. She wore
shoes, but no stockings, and her faded cotton dress switched
about her brown legs. She was a little Belgian refugee who had
been sent there with her mother. The mother was dead now, and the
child would not even go to visit her grave. She could not be
coaxed from the court-yard into the quiet street. If the
neighbour children came into the garden on an errand, she hid
herself. She would have no playmates but the cat; and now she had
the kittens in the tool house.

Dinner was very cheerful that evening. M. Joubert was pleased
that the storm had not lasted long enough to hurt the wheat. The
garden was fresh and bright after the rain. The cherry tree shook
down bright drops on the tablecloth when the breeze stirred. The
mother cat dozed on the red cushion in Madame Joubert's sewing
chair, and the pigeons fluttered down to snap up earthworms that
wriggled in the wet sand. The shadow of the house fell over the
dinner-table, but the tr