ept very well and cheerful and I'm cheerful now,'" the letter
began. "'Please always think of me as cheerful. Everybody in our company
has fought well; just as bravely as our forefathers did in the wars of
their day.'"

"Which hardly agrees with your ideas," observed Westerling.

"Exactly, sir. Men should be brave for their convictions," answered
Hugo. "And, as you said, the men of our province are loyal to the old
ideas. They believe they ought to fight the Browns."

Then followed a brief, intimate, appealing story of how each of his dead
comrades had fallen.

"'You can read these to their folks at home, if you want to. They might
like to know.'"

Irresistibly there crept into Westerling's face at these recitals of
soldierly courage the satisfaction of the commander with the spirit of
his men. Here was proof of the valor of the units of his army.

"'Now I have something to tell you which will hurt you very much,'"
Westerling read on, "'but you must recollect that I was always regarded
as a little queer. And I don't think people will hold you to blame on my
account. I hope they will sympathize with you for having such a son. You
will have heard the story from the men of the company, but I also want
to tell it to you....'"

After it was told the letter proceeded:

"'I feel that I was a coward up to the moment that everybody else was
calling me a coward. Then I felt free and happy, as if I had been true
to myself. I felt that I had been just as much in the wrong as if we
should break into our neighbor's house and take his property because we
were stronger than he. How would you feel if a neighbor entered your
house and made it his own? You would call in the police. But what if
there were no police? Would that make it right?'"

Marta's own opinions! The spirit of her children's prayer! Head bent,
hands clasped, she was simply listening.

"'Would it be cowardice if one of the neighbor's family said, "I will
not take any further part in this robbery!" when he saw you, mother,
weeping over you, father, as you lay dead after trying to defend your
house? When I was asked to fire at those running men it was like
standing on a neighbor's door-step and firing down the street at my
neighbors in flight. I could not do it. I could not do it though twenty
million men were doing the same thing. No, I could not do it any more
than you could commit murder, father. That is all. Perhaps when those
who survive from my company co