cap and cheering; then he turned to rush down into the street, struck against some thing soft, and recoiled. The girl! She stood with hands clenched, her face convulsed, panting, and even in the madness of his joy, he felt for her. To hear thisin the midst of enemies! All confused with the desire to do something, he stooped to take her hand; and the dusty reek of the table-cloth clung to his nostrils. She snatched away her fingers, swept up the notes he had put down, and held them out to him.

"Take them-I will not haf your English money take them." And suddenly she tore them across twice, three times, let the bits flutter to the floor, and turned her back to him. He stood looking at her leaning against the plush-covered table that smelt of dust; her head down, a dark figure in a dark room with the moonlight sharpening her outline-hardly a moment he stayed, then made for the door. . . .

When he was gone, she still stood there, her chin on her breast-she who cared for nothing, believed in nothing-with the

sound in her ears of bells, and cheering, of hurrying feet, and voices calling "Victory!" stood, in the centre of a pattern made by fragments of the torn-up notes, staring out into the moonlight, seeing, not this hated room and the hated square outside, but a German orchard, and herself, a little girl, plucking apples, a big dog beside her; a hundred other pictures, too, such as the drowning see. Her heart swelled; she sank down on the floor, laid her forehead on the dusty carpet, and pressed her body to it.

She who did not care-who despised all peoples, even her own-began, mechanically, to sweep together the scattered fragments of the notes, assembling them with the dust into a little pile, as of fallen leaves, and dabbling in it with her fingers, while the tears ran down her cheeks. For her country she had torn them, her country in defeat! She, who had just one shilling in this great town of enemies, who wrung her stealthy living out of the embraces of her foes! And suddenly in the moonlight she sat up and began to sing with all her might "Die Wacht am Rhein."

I

O firmly is the superstition, "It is bad luck to watch your husband's ship out of sight," established among 'the wives" in the United States navy, that if you had questioned Mrs. Frank Bradley-wife of a junior lieutenant and a bride of two months-as to its origin, she would have answered unhesitatingly that it was order from the secretary of the navy." She had no idea of disobeying the order when, after bidding her husband goodby very early that morning and crying herself into a state of exhaustion afterward, she realized she could get to the navy-yard in time to see the ship sail and perhaps catch a last glimpse of him.

an

Like most officers, Lieutenant Bradley "didn't want his wife making a nuisance of herself around the ship," but if she sat in the jitney he wouldn't know she was there. And the jitney-man, on being questioned as to charges for the prudent wife of a junior lieutenant attends to such details, even in time of stress-had answered that "he wouldn't charge anything for waiting; it'd be a kind of novelty to watch a battleship get away."

Out of the wind, sheltered by a building, Mrs. Bradley could see that the few men on deck were busy.

The duty-launch had been hoisted and secured; the forward gangway lowered; two noisy tugs came alongside; on the bridge the navigator bent over a large chart; the mail-orderly returned from his last trip to the post-office; a messenger boy, whistling lustily, sauntered up with a handful of telegrams.

Four bells struck. The ship was to sail at half-past ten. Through a blur of tears Mrs. Bradley saw the navy-yard workmen gather about the after gangway.

Several poorly clad women arrived and stood near her; they tried to cheer a younger woman who was sobbing and

monotonously asking: "What if there's war?"

The jitney-man heard her. "If there's war that big ship might be the first one to go to the bottom," he observed cheerfully to his passenger.

"Good morning! It's little Mrs. Bradley, isn't it?" questioned a pleasant voice.

The admiral's wife stood beside the jitney.

"I'm visiting at the commandant'sthe house is so near I couldn't resist getting a last glimpse of things," she said, and laughed apologetically. "John hates women hanging around the ship—but he can't see me here," she added.

"Do admirals feel that way? I thought it was just my husband," said Mrs. Bradley.

The admiral's wife smiled.

"This must be your first parting," she observed.

Mrs. Bradley nodded forlornly.

"Because there are fifty-two officers on that ship-most of them are married— and fifty of the wives aren't anywhere in sight," said the admiral's wife.

"They've grown used to seeing their husbands go―or else they don't love them as I do mine," remarked Mrs. Bradley resentfully.

"I've said good-by to John in every port from Olongapo to Pensacola; it never loses its novelty by getting easier; but one grows more-patient," observed the admiral's wife.

"Other times couldn't be as bad! This parting is terrible, and hard, because there may be war," cried Mrs. Bradley.

The admiral's wife did not answer. She clinched her hands as she remembered a parting long ago in a gray hospital-room, when her ensign son looked at her from unrecognizing eyes and agonizingly moved his body under the encircling bandages. . .

"Minor turret explosion on battle

ship," announced the earliest editions of the newspapers when, without a word for her to treasure through the years, her son had slipped away . . . into the dawn. Resolutely the admiral's wife glanced at the little group of women near them. "Those are sailors' wives-one of them has a baby that is too tiny to bring here this cold morning," she said.

"That's the one that's crying all time about war," volunteered the jitney-man. "Frank says it will be a naval war," said Mrs. Bradley, swallowing with difficulty.

"I hope you cheered him up our men need all their courage during these trying days," said the admiral's wife briskly. She did not mention that five times during their last few minutes together the admiral had reminded her not to forget to pay his life-insurance dues.

Mrs. Bradley began to cry. "I told Frank... that if anything happened to . . . him . . . I'd soon join him," she sobbed.

"Splendid!" observed the admiral's wife dryly; "after that I suppose he left the house singing joyfully-at the top of his voice."

ing-and farewell. Voices shouted orders through drifting clouds of smoke. Slowly... the great dreadnought moved. . . and as the whistles quieted down the band on the quarter-deck played the opening bars of the favorite naval-academy song, "Anchors Aweigh.'

Gayly the old tune lilted over the crowded gray masses of steel and stone as it had echoed across sunny paradeground and uproarious football fieldswhen youth called to youth of springtime that is so quickly gone.

Mrs. Bradley, her eyes shining, jumped from the jitney and frantically waved her muff. Tears and forebodings were swept away by an overwhelming flood of enthusiasm.

The sailors' wives stepped forward; the one with the tiny baby lifted it high and, steadying its head, bade it "look at father's boat-and the pretty flag.'

Puffing . . . the tugs warped the ship from her pier . . . shoved her sidewise . . into the channel . . . paused. . . a perceptible minute . . . and moved. ahead . . . down-stream.

Slowly. . . she gathered momentum; at her bow two white-tipped lines of water flowed sharply out . . . more faintly "Anchors Aweigh" drifted back on the cold wind.

Mrs. Bradley, mindful of superstition, turned away and climbed into the jitney. "But where is the admiral's wife?" she asked.

"The lady that was talking to you? She's gone!" said the jitney-man. "I asked her something, but she didn't answer-just shook her head and walked away-sort of stumbling

He cranked the engine vigorously.

"The reason she couldn't answer was because she was crying," said the jitneyman.