uncheon all the same or not; so I slipped in by the side door to
see whether I could find some one to ask quietly. Oh!" cried Sarah,
throwing her arms impetuously round Lady Mary's neck, "tell me it
isn't true?"

"My boy has come home," said Lady Mary.

Sarah turned from red to white, and from white to red again.

"But they said," she faltered--"they said he--"

"Yes, my dear," said Lady Mary, understanding; and the tears started
to her own eyes. "Peter has lost an arm, but otherwise--otherwise,"
she said, in trembling tones, "my boy is safe and sound."

Sarah turned away her face and cried.

Lady Mary was touched. "Why, Sarah!" she said; and she drew the girl
down beside her on the sofa and kissed her softly.

"I am sorry to be so silly," said Sarah, recovering herself. "It isn't
a bit like me, is it?"

"It is like you, I think, to have a warm heart," said Lady Mary,
"though you don't show it to every one; and, after all, you and Peter
are old friends--playmates all your lives."

"It's been like a lump of lead on my heart all these months and
years," said Sarah, "to think how I scoffed at Peter in the Christmas
holidays before he went to the war, because my brothers had gone,
whilst he stayed at home. Perhaps that was the reason he went. I used
to lie awake at night sometimes, thinking that if Peter were killed it
would be all my fault. And now his arm has gone--and Tom and Willie
came back safely long ago." She cried afresh.

"It may not have been that at all," said Lady Mary, consolingly. "I
don't think Peter was a boy to take much notice of what a goose of
a little girl said. He felt he was a man, and ought to go--and his
grandfather was a soldier--it is in the blood of the Setouns to want
to fight for their country," said Lady Mary, with a smile and a little
thrill of pride; for, after all, if her boy were a Crewys, he was also
a Setoun. "Besides, poor child, you were so young; you didn't think;
you didn't know--"

"You always make excuses for me," said Sarah, with subdued enthusiasm;
"but I understand better now what it means--to send an only son away
from his mother."

"The young take responsibility so lightly," said Lady Mary. "But now
he has come home, my darling, why, you needn't reproach yourself any
longer. It is good of you to care so much for my boy."

"It--it isn't only that. Of course, I was always fond of Peter," said
Sarah; "but even if I had nothing to do with his going"--her voice
so