t, is a memorial to my wife. The grandfathers of
these boys used to see her light in the window of the old house on
stormy nights, and they knew that it was an invitation to good cheer.
More than one crew coming in half frozen were glad of the soup and
coffee which were sent down to them in cans with baskets of bread. And
this little coffee-room has been the outgrowth of just such hospitality.
There are too many of the men to have in my house. I simply entertain
them elsewhere, and I like to go and talk to them, and sometimes
Petronella goes."

"There's a picture of dear Aunt Pet hanging there," said Petronella,
"and you can't imagine how it softens the manners of the men. It is as
if her spirit brooded over the place. They have made it into a sort of
shrine, and they bring shells and queer carved things to put on the
shelf below it."

"In the city we are beginning to think that such methods weaken
self-respect."

"That's because," said the wise old Admiral, "in the city there isn't
any real democracy. You give your friend a cup of coffee and think
nothing of it, yet when I give a cup of coffee to a sailor whose
grandfather and mine fished together on the banks, you warn me that my
methods tend to pauperize. In the city the poor are never your
friends--in this little town no man would admit that he is less than I.
They like my coffee and they drink it."

Petronella, seeing her chance, took it. "I think people are horrid to
let money make a difference."

"You say that," said Hare, "because you have never had to accept
favors--you have, in other words, never been on the other side."

The Admiral, taking up cudgels for his niece, answered, "If she had been
on the other side, she would have taken life as she takes it now--like a
gentleman and a soldier," and he smiled at Petronella.

Hare had a baffled sense that the Admiral was right--that Petronella's
fineness and delicacy would never go down in defeat or despair. She
would hold her head high though the heavens fell. But could any man make
such demands upon her? For himself, he would not.

So he answered, doggedly, "We shall hope she need never be tested." And
Petronella's heart sank like lead.

But presently she began to talk about the little tree. "We have always
had it in uncle's lookout tower. That was another of dear Aunt Pet's
thoughts for the sailors. On clear nights they looked through their
glasses for the little colored lights, and on stormy nights th