have been here, but I want your account of it before I begin to take
action in the matter."

"It was the most dastardly thing I ever heard, Major," said Phoebe
quietly with a deep note in her voice. "For one moment I sat stunned. The
long line of veterans as I saw them last year at the reunion, old and
gray, limping some of them, but glory in their bright faces, some of them
singing and laughing, came back to me. I thought my heart would burst at
the insult to them and to--us, their children. But when David rose from
his chair beside me I drew a long breath. I wish you could have heard him
and seen him. He was stately and courteous--and he said it _all_. He
voiced the love and the reverence that is in all our hearts for them.
It was a very dignified forceful speech--and _David_ made it!" Phoebe
stood close against the table and for a moment veiled her tear-starred
eyes from the major's keen glance.

"Phoebe," he said after a moment's silence, "I sometimes think the world
lacks a standard by which to measure some of her vaster products. Perhaps
you and I have just explored the heart of David Kildare so far. But a
heart as fine as his isn't going to pump fool blood into any man's
brain--eh?"

"Sometimes and about some things, you do me a great injustice, Major,"
answered Phoebe slowly, with a serious look into the keen eyes bent upon
hers. "Of all the 'glad crowd', as David calls us, I am the only woman
who comes directly in contact with the struggling, working, hand-to-hand
fight of life, and I can't help letting it affect me in my judgment
of--of us. I can't forget it when--when I amuse myself or let David amuse
me. I seem to belong with them and not in the life he would make for me;
yet you know I care--but if you are going to get out that extra edition