and carry a fat sheep under either arm. True, she
had never seen him, but a rude painting at home which
depicted a square-faced, clean shaven, stalwart man
with a great bearskin cap, rose ever before her
memory when she thought of him.

She was still gazing at the brown medal and
wondering what the "Dulce et decorum est" might
mean, which was inscribed upon the edge, when there
came a sudden tapping and shuffling upon the stair,
and there at the door was standing the very man who
had been so often in her thoughts.

But could this indeed be he? Where was the
martial air, the flashing eye, the warrior face which
she had pictured? There, framed in the doorway, was
a huge twisted old man, gaunt and puckered, with
twitching hands and shuffling, purposeless feet. A
cloud of fluffy white hair, a red-veined nose, two
thick tufts of eyebrow and a pair of dimly
questioning, watery blue eyes--these were what met
her gaze. He leaned forward upon a stick, while his
shoulders rose and fell with his crackling, rasping
breathing.

"I want my morning rations," he crooned, as he
stumped forward to his chair. "The cold nips me
without 'em. See to my fingers!" He held out his
distorted hands, all blue at the tips, wrinkled
and gnarled, with huge, projecting knuckles.