uous women'
have succeeded in keeping the world a perfectly safe place for women?"

Mrs. Prescott was repelled, but Katie did not notice. She was looking
with a passionate sternness off at New York. "Let _anything_ be touched,"
she spoke it with deep feeling. "I say _nothing's_ too precious to be
touched--if touching it can make things better!"

Mrs. Prescott had gone below. Katie feared that she had wounded her, and
was sorry. She had not been able to help it. The face of that immigrant
girl was too tragically eager.

They were almost in now, close to Governor's Island, over which the flag
was flying. It gripped her as it had never done before.

"Boy," she said to Worth, perched on a coil of rope beside her, "there's
your country. Country your people came to a long time ago, and fought
for, and some of them died for. And you'll grow up, Worth, and _you'll_
fight for it. Not the way they fought; it won't need you to fight for it
that way; _they_ did that--and now that's done. But there will be lots
for you to fight for, too; harder fights to fight, I think, than any they
fought. You'll fight to make it a better place for men and women and
little children to live in. Not by firing guns at other men, Worth, but
by being as wise and kind and as honest and fair as you know how to be."

It was her voice moved him; it had been vibrant with real passion.

But after a moment the face of the child of many soldiers clouded. "But
won't I have _any_ gun 'tall, Aunt Kate?" he asked wistfully.

She smiled at the stubborn persistence of militarism. "I'm afraid not,
dear. I hope we're not going to have so many guns when you're a man. But,
Worth, if you don't have the gun, other little boys will have more to
eat. There are lots of little boys and girls in the world now haven't
enough to eat just because there are so many guns. Wouldn't you rather
do without the gun and know that nobody was going hungry?"

"I--guess so," faltered Worth, striving to be magnanimous but
looking wistful.

"But, Aunt Kate," he pursued after another silence, "what's father making
guns for--if there aren't going to be any?"

Katie's smile was not one Worth would be likely to get much from. "Ask
father," she said rather grimly. "I think he might find the question
interesting."

Worth continued solemn. "But, Aunt Kate--won't there be anybody
'tall to kill?"

"Why, honey," she laughed, "does it really seem to you such a gloomy
world--world in which t