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CHAPTER XXXI.
THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH.
Thou bringest the sailor to his wife,
And travelled men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanished life,"
In Memoriam.
By his self-sacrifice and death, Larry achieved more than by wisdom and firmness in life. In their sympathy for the young widow, the people forgot imagined wrongs, and contended to assuage her grief and to second the efforts of the sorrow-stricken women upon whom, for a while, control virtually devolved.
Hilda was softened by her great grief. She reproached herself for the self-seeking, and contempt of those beneath her, that hitherto characterized her life. Her first visits were to the cottagers, who had sent loving messages with other tokens of their sympathy. So it came to pass that, as often is the case, strength came by suffering, and a new love arose out of the ashes of the old.
About a month after Larry's death the telephone announced the Mimosa in the lower canal. Ere long the entire community had assembled at the lake to greet the wanderers. A chill struck to the hearts of all as the word passed from lip to lip—"The flag!—it is half-mast high!" The mother whose son, the wife whose husband
