family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without
hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence
which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an
irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very
unexpected manner.

"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd
find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more
than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now,
isn't it?"

He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was
asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer
into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic
than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.

The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been
practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie
went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.

This was the break-up of Davie's life. His wife went to live with Sandy
and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.

Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected
to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting
came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad
enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.

In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of
romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost