want to cry."

Drusilla gave them "Wee Hoose among the Heather," with the touch of
pathos which the little man in the red kilt had imparted to it as he
had sung it in October in New York before an audience which had wept as
it had welcomed him.

"Queer thing," Captain Hewes mused, "what the war has done to him, set
him preaching and all that."

"Oh, it isn't queer," Margaret was eager. "That is one of the things
the war is doing, bringing men back to--God--" A sob caught in her
throat.

Drusilla's hands strayed upon the keys, and into the Battle Hymn of the
Republic.

"I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on--"

It was an old tune, but the words were new to Captain Hewes--as the
girl chanted them, in that repressed voice that yet tore the heart out
of him.

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat,
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant my feet,
Our God is marching on--"

The Captain sat on the edge of his chair. His face was illumined.

"By Jove," he ejaculated, "that's topping!"

Drusilla stood up with her back to the piano, and sang without music.

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea--
With the glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me,
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on--"

She wore a gown of sheer dull blue, there was a red rose in her
hair--her white arms, her white neck, the blue and red, youth and fire,
strength and purity.

When she finished the room was very still. The big Englishman had no
words for such a moment. The music had swept him up to unexpected
heights of emotion. While Drusilla sang he had glimpsed for the first
time the meaning of democracy, he had seen, indeed, in a great and
lofty sense, for the first time--America.

Among the shadows a young man shrank in his seat. His vision was not
of Democracy, but of a freezing night--of a ragged old voice rising
from the blackness of a steep ravine--

"Oh, be swift, my soul--to answer--Him--
Be jubilant my feet--"

Why had Drusilla chosen that of all songs? Oh, why had she sung at all?

A maid came in to say that Mr. Drake was wanted at the teleph