Part 24 (2/2)

”I'm going away, myself, next week, S. A. T. C. I can't get any nearer France than that, it seems, just yet. Father Bob says he can manage all right this winter and he has a notion of something new that may turn up next spring. He says, 'Go,' and so does Mother Jess. So--I'm going.”

Elliott stole a quick glance at the firm, clear-cut face, chiseled already in lines of purpose and power.

”I'm glad,” she said, ”but we shall--miss you.”

”Shall _you_ miss me?”

”Yes.”

”I'd hate to think that you wouldn't.”

Elliott always remembered the morning, three days later, when Bruce went away. How blue the sky was, how clear the suns.h.i.+ne, how glorious the autumn pageant of the hills! Beside the gate a young maple burned like a shaft of flame. True, Bruce was only going to school now, but there was France in the background, a beckoning possibility with all that it meant of triumph and heroism and pain. That idea of France, and the fiery splendor of the hills, seemed to invest Bruce's strong young figure with a kind of glory that tightened the girl's throat as she waved good-by from the veranda. She was glad Bruce was going, even if her throat did ache. Aches like that seemed far less important than they used to. She waved with a thrill coursing up her spine and a shy, eager sense of how big and wonderful and happy a thing it was to be a girl.

With a last wave to Bruce turning the curve of the road Mother Jess stepped back into the house.

”Come, girls,” she said. ”I feel like getting very busy, don't you?”

Elliott followed her contentedly. Others might go, but she didn't wish to, not while Father was on the other side of the ocean. It made her laugh to think that she had ever wished to. That laugh of pure mirth and happiness proved the completeness of Elliott Cameron's evacuation.

”What is the joke?” Laura asked, smiling at the radiant charm of the dainty figure enveloping itself in a blue ap.r.o.n.

”Oh,” said Elliott lightly, ”I was thinking that I used to be a queer girl.”

THE END

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