ed him a telegram.

Kew stood aghast, as she meant him to. No disaster is ever so great as it
is before you know what it is. But Kew ought to have known Anonyma's
disasters by experience.

"Russ's wife has appeared."

"Why should she be introduced as a disaster?" asked Kew, with a sigh of
relief. "Is she a maniac, or a suffragette, or a Mormon, or just some one
who has never read any of your books?"

He opened the telegram. It called upon him to rejoin his battalion next
day at noon.

"Russ went to his house to fetch something this morning and found his
wife there. He looks quite ill. She insisted on coming here with him, and
now she wishes to go on the tour with us. As I hear the car is hers, we
can hardly refuse."

"I don't pretend to understand the subtleties of this disaster," said
Kew. "But as you evidently don't intend me to, I will not try. Notice,
however, that I am keeping my head. I have always wondered how I should
behave in a disaster."

"Wait till you meet her," said Anonyma.

Kew heard Mrs. Russell's melodramatic laughter as he approached the
sitting-room door, and he trembled. She laughed "Ha-ha-ha" in a concise
way, and the sound was constant.

"That is her ready sense of fun that you can hear," said Anonyma
bitterly. "She is teaching Gustus to see the humorous side."

They entered to find poor Cousin Gustus bending like a reed before a
perfect gale of "Ha-ha-ha's." Mrs. Russell was so much interested in what
she was saying that she left Kew on her leeward side for the moment,
hardly looking at him as she shook hands.

"It's enough to make the gods laugh on Olympus," she said, but it did not
make Cousin Gustus laugh. Noticing this, Mrs. Russell turned to Kew.

"I was telling your cousin about my pacificist efforts in the
States," she said. "Yes, I can see your eye twinkling; I know a pacifist
is a funny thing to be. But I'm not one of the--what I call
dumpy-toad-in-the-hole ones. I do it all joyously. I was telling your
cousin how very small was the chance that robbed us of success in Ohio."

"What sort of success?" asked Kew.

"Peace," said Mrs. Russell.

"But is Ohio at war?"

Mrs. Russell laughed heartily. Her unnecessarily frank laughter showed
her gums as well as her teeth, and made one wish that her sense of
humour were not quite so keen.

"I see you are one of us," she said. "What I call one of the Jolly
Fraternity. No, Ohio is still enjoying peace. But--if you follow me--fro