th trouble.'

An' what about all the whalebone we supplies for ladies' corsets an'
paper knives, and what about all the stories we make for the novelists
an' the moving pictures an'--'"

"We're at the Sprig of Holly now," said Felix. "Is it a pint of porter
or a bottle you'll have?"

"I'll have a pint, I think," said Standish.

IN BERLIN[15]

BY MARY BOYLE O'REILLY

From _The Boston Daily Advertiser_

[15] Copyright, 1915, by The Boston Daily Advertiser.

The train crawling out of Berlin was filled with women and children,
hardly an able-bodied man. In one compartment a gray-haired Landsturm
soldier sat beside an elderly woman who seemed weak and ill. Above
the click-clack of the car wheels passengers could hear her counting:
"One, two, three," evidently absorbed in her own thoughts. Sometimes she
repeated the words at short intervals. Two girls tittered, thoughtlessly
exchanging vapid remarks about such extraordinary behavior. An elderly
man scowled reproval. Silence fell.

"One, two, three," repeated the obviously unconscious woman. Again the
girls giggled stupidly. The gray Landsturm leaned forward.

"Fraeulein," he said gravely, "you will perhaps cease laughing when I
tell you that this poor lady is my wife. We have just lost our three
sons in battle. Before leaving for the front myself I must take their
mother to an insane asylum."

It became terribly quiet in the carriage.

THE WAITING YEARS[16]

BY KATHARINE METCALF ROOF

From _The Century Magazine_

[16] Copyright 1915, by The Century Co. Copyright, 1916, by Katharine
Metcalf Roof.

The shadow on the sun-dial, blue upon its white-marble surface, marked
four o'clock, but its edge was broken by the irregular silhouette of
an encroaching rose-bush. The sun-dial in the midst of the wide, sunny
garden, the old red-brick house among the elms--these were the most
sharply defined elements of Mark Faraday's picture of home. Born in
Italy, for most of his young life a sojourner in foreign lands, he yet
remembered being utterly happy at "Aunt Lucretia's" when at seven he
had made his first visit to his mother's country. That memory had never
faded. He had recalled and reclaimed each detail of its serene charm at
his second visit ten years later, after his mother's death. And now in
America again, he had naturally gravitated toward the old place.

The young man gave a careless friendliness to his faded little aunt,
and spent long