ining, which to most gave robustness, gave to Young
Perch, Sabre thought, a striking enhancement of the fine-drawn
expression that always had been his. About his eyes and forehead Sabre
apprehended something suggestive of the mystic, spiritually-occupied
look that paintings of the Huguenots and the old Crusaders had; and
looking at him when he came to say good-by, and while he spoke solely
and only of his mother, Sabre remembered that long-ago thought of Young
Perch's aspect,--of his spirit being alighted in his body as a bird on a
twig, not engrossed in his body; a thing death would need no more than
to pluck off between finger and thumb.

But unthinkable, that. Not Young Perch....

Old Mrs. Perch was very broken and very querulous. She blamed Sabre and
she blamed Effie that Freddie had gone to the war. She said they had
leagued with him to send him off. "Freddie I could have managed," she
used to say; "but you I cannot manage, Mr. Sabre; and as for Effie, you
might think I was a child and she was mistress the way she treats me."

Bright Effie used to laugh and say, "Now, you know, Mrs. Perch, you will
insist on coming and tucking me up at night. Now does that look as if
she's the child, Mr. Sabre?"

Mrs. Perch in her dogged way, "If Mr. Sabre doesn't know that you only
permit me to tuck you up one night because I permit you to tuck me up
the next night, the sooner he does know how I'm treated in my own
establishment the better for me."

Thus the initial cause of querulousness would bump off into something
else; and in an astonishing short number of moves Bright Effie would
lead Mrs. Perch to some happy subject and the querulousness would give
place to little rays of animation; and presently Mrs. Perch would doze
comfortably in her chair while Sabre talked to Effie in whispers; and
when she woke Sabre would be ready with some reminiscence of Freddie
carefully chosen and carefully carried along to keep it hedged with
smiles. But all the roads where Freddie was to be found were sunken
roads, the smiling hedges very low about them, the ditches overcharged
with water, and tears soon would come.

She used to doze and murmur to herself, "My boy's gone to fight for his
country. I'm very proud of my boy gone to fight for his country."

Effie said Young Perch had taught her that before he went away.

While they were talking she used to doze and say, "Good morning, Mrs.
So-and-So. My boy's gone to fight for his country.