and thrashed him nearly to death. We haven't seen him since."
"Well, I'll take care of you, Mama, when I get home. Of course I'll get well. It's absurd to die at nineteen. You know I never believed the bullet had been moulded that could hit me. In three years of battle, I lived a charmed life and never got a scratch."
His voice had grown feeble and laboured, and his face flushed. His mother placed her hand on his lips.
"Just one more," he pleaded feebly. "Did you see the little angel who has been playing and singing for me? You must thank her."
"Yes, I see her coming now. I must go and tell Margaret, and we will get a pass and come every day."
She kissed him, and went to meet Elsie.
"And you are the dear girl who has been playing and singing for my boy, a wounded stranger here alone among his foes?"
"Yes, and for all the others, too."
Mrs. Cameron seized both of her hands and looked at her tenderly.
"You will let me kiss you? I shall always love you."
She pressed Elsie to her heart. In spite of the girl's reserve, a sob caught her breath at the touch of the warm lips. Her own mother had died when she was a baby, and a shy, hungry heart, long hidden from the world, leaped in tenderness and pain to meet that embrace.
Elsie walked with her to the door, wondering how the terrible truth of her boy's doom could be told.
She tried to speak, looked into Mrs. Cameron's face,
