surgical dressings had been cut and folded and put away in large boxes
on shelves behind glass doors where the most valuable books had held
their stately existence for years. The books were stowed now in trunks
in the attic. These were war days; luxuries such as first editions must
wait their time. The great living-room itself, the center of home for
this family since the two boys were born and ever this family had been,
the dear big room with its dark carved oak, and tapestries, and stained
glass, and books, and memories was given over now to war relief work.

Sometimes, as the mistress walked into the spacious, low-ceilinged,
bright place, presences long past seemed to fill it intolerably. Brock
and Hugh, little chaps, roared in untidy and tumultuous from football,
or came, decorous and groomed, handsome, smart little lads, to be
presented to guests. Her own Hugh, her husband, proud of the beautiful
new house, smiled from the hearth to her as he had smiled twenty-six
years back, the night they came in, a young Hugh, younger than Brock was
now. Her father and mother, long gone over "to the majority," and the
exquisite old ivory beauty of a beautiful grandmother--such ghosts rose
and faced the woman as she stepped into the room where they had moved in
life, the room with its loveliness marred by two long tables covered
with green oilcloth, by four rows of cheap chairs, by rows and rows of
boxes on shelves where soft and bright and dark colors of books had
glowed. She felt often that she should explain matters to the room,
should tell the walls which had sheltered peace and hospitality that she
had consecrated them to yet higher service. Never for one instant,
while her soul ached for the familiar setting, had she regretted its
sacrifice. That her soul did ache made it worth while.

And the women gathered for this branch Red Cross organization, her
neighbors on the edge of the great city, wives and daughters and mothers