rowing so common on every armed
front--the chagrin of finding one's foe entrenched--she saw how utterly
despair had failed to crush a gentle soul. Under cover of affliction's
night and storm Anna, this whole Anna Callender, had been reinforced,
had fortified and was a new problem.

She greeted Flora with a welcoming beam, but before speaking she caught
her sister's arm and glanced herself, at the superscription.

"Flora!" she softly cried, "oh, Flora Valcour! has your brother--your
Charlie!--come home alive and well?--What; no?--No, he has not?"

The visitor was shaking her head: "No. Ah, no! home, yes, and al-I've;
but--"

"Oh, Flora, Flora! alive and at home! home and alive!" While the words
came their speaker slowly folded her arms about the bearer of tidings,
and with a wholly unwonted strength pressed her again to the rail and
drew bosom to bosom, still exclaiming, "Alive! alive! Oh, whatever his
plight, be thankful, Flora, for so much! Alive enough to _come_ home!"

XLVII

FROM THE BURIAL SQUAD

The pinioned girl tried to throw back her head and bring their eyes
together, but Anna, through some unconscious advantage, held it to her
shoulder, her own face looking out over the garden.

"Ah, let me be glad for you, Flora, let me be glad for you! Oh, think of
it! You _have_ him! have him at home, to look upon, to touch, to call by
name! and to be looked upon by _him_ and touched and called by name! Oh,
God in heaven! God in heaven!"

Miranda's fond protests were too timorous to check her, and Flora's
ceased in the delight of hearing that last wail confess the thought of
Hilary. Constance strove with tender energy for place and voice: "Nan,
dearie, Nan! But listen to Flora, Nan. See, Nan, I haven't opened
Steve's letter yet. Wounded and what, Flora, something worse? Ah, if
worse you couldn't have left him."

"I know," sighed Anna, relaxing her arms to a caress and turning her
gaze to Flora. "I see. Your brother, our dear Charlie, has come back to
life, but wounded and alone. Alone. Hilary is still missing. Isn't that
it? That's all, isn't it?"

Constance, in a sudden thought of what her letters might tell, began to
open one, though with her eyes at every alternate moment on Flora as
eagerly as Miranda's or Anna's. Flora stood hiddenly revelling in that
complexity of her own spirit which enabled her to pour upon her
questioner a look, even a real sentiment, of ravishing pity, while
nevertheless in