she added, "give it a little more thought--the
enlisting, I mean. The world isn't too rich in kind influences. It
needs men like you. Come, pull yourself together and show a little
pluck." She laughed.

"I'll try," he promised, "but it won't be any use; I shall drift about
the streets, seeking to put heart into myself, but all the while my
footsteps will be bearing me nearer and nearer to the recruiting office;
and outside the door some girl in the crowd will smile approval or some
old fool will pat me on the shoulder and I shall sneak in and it will
close behind me. It must be fine to have courage."

He wrote her two days later from Ayr, giving her the name of his
regiment, and again some six months later from Flanders. But there would
have been no sense in her replying to that last.

She lingered in the street by herself, a little time, after he had turned
the corner. It had been a house of sorrow and disappointment to her; but
so also she had dreamed her dreams there, seen her visions. She had
never made much headway with her landlord and her landlady: a worthy
couple, who had proved most excellent servants, but who prided
themselves, to use their own expression, on knowing their place and
keeping themselves to themselves. Joan had given them notice that
morning, and had been surprised at the woman's bursting into tears.

"I felt it just the same when young Mr. McKean left us," she explained
with apologies. "He had been with us five years. He was like you, miss,
so unpracticable. I'd got used to looking after him."

Mary Greyson called on her in the morning, while she was still at
breakfast. She had come from seeing Francis off by an early train from
Euston. He had sent Joan a ring.

"He is so afraid you may not be able to wear it--that it will not fit
you," said Mary, "but I told him I was sure it would."

Joan held our her hand for the letter. "I was afraid he had forgotten
it," she answered, with a smile.

She placed the ring on her finger and held out her hand. "I might have
been measured for it," she said. "I wonder how he knew."

"You left a glove behind you, the first day you ever came to our house,"
Mary explained. "And I kept it."

She was following his wishes and going down into the country. They did
not meet again until after the war.

Madge dropped in on her during the week and brought Flossie with her.
Flossie's husband, Sam, had departed for the Navy; and Niel Singleton,