"Have you heard the news, Jem?"

"Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave France
in the lurch. I've been trying to get Captain Josiah to hoist the flag
but he says it isn't the proper caper till sunrise. Jack says they'll be
calling for volunteers tomorrow."

"What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as Jem
dashed off. She was sitting out with Miller Douglas on a lobster trap
which was not only an unromantic but an uncomfortable seat. But Mary and
Miller were both supremely happy on it. Miller Douglas was a big,
strapping, uncouth lad, who thought Mary Vance's tongue uncommonly
gifted and Mary Vance's white eyes stars of the first magnitude; and
neither of them had the least inkling why Jem Blythe wanted to hoist the
lighthouse flag. "What does it matter if there's going to be a war over
there in Europe? I'm sure it doesn't concern us."

Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy.

"Before this war is over," he said--or something said through his lips
--"every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it--you, Mary,
will feel it--feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of
blood over it. The Piper has come--and he will pipe until every corner
of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be
years before the dance of death is over--years, Mary. And in those
years millions of hearts will break."

"Fancy now!" said Mary who always said that when she couldn't think of
anything else to say. She didn't know what Walter meant but she felt
uncomfortable. Walter Blythe was always saying odd things. That old