that his brother's skin was still whitely smooth and his arms as full of grace. The spring sent his soul wandering, and he dreamed of his brother. They were no longer boys, and love had outlasted the old nearness; it might still leap a gate. In his dream he said to Judson: "You don't hate me. You can't." And Judson changed the smile to a brother's grin. "What makes you so restless?" asked Marie.

"Oh, I don't know. The rotten

weather, this Mexican row. Remember I was born in Texas."

Marie wiped milk off young Arthur's chin.

"I've often thought what a fine soldier you 'd make, dear. You 're so self-controlled and you 'd look so splendid. And your men would do anything for you."

Eben blushed. He was perpetually surprised that she could love him at all, a man his own brother hated, a man who could lie in her breast and long for an

kissed her humbly.

"If there is a row I sha'n't go," he said. "I'd worry about the kids an' you so I'd forget to shoot and get court-martialed."

"You never forget anything, Ben."

"No," Eben said; "I don't." Presently, because he would not dishonor her with a lie, he said:

"And it's worse than ever right now, my not forgetting. It's that that 's making me so miserable. I can't help it, Ria." "He's in this new thing," said Marie, "the armored motor battalion. Sid Waters told me."

How splendid he must look in khaki! Eben thought. Then all his imagination glittered to a scene of dusty cactus and the smile fixed on approaching death, the fair body.

"Is he ordered?"

"Can't say. How can a man go on loving a fool that won't. even come to his wedding? The-"

"He does. Let it go," said Marie, sternly.

THE next noon Eben woke with a lucid mind and a perfect resolve. He belonged to Marie, to his sons, not to Judson, who had cast him away for a word or so, for a

THAT night the newsboys had a fresh surprising bellow from the wire, and the next day a man in Washington called on the militia of the several States to protect the border.

"By gosh!" said Arthur, "do you see me sweating under a cactus-tree? Let's go to a revue to-night."

Eben assented. His girl model was sniffling for a brother in the Sixty-ninth, and Marie's eyes were gleaming at his face. He was in hell, sending out hourly. for the extras that might tell him what regiments were under arms; and in the rainy glare of Broadway he saw Judson through their taxicab window, glorious in his khaki service cap on the guard of an open car splashed with uniforms. And he sat until dawn, his arms gripped under his knees, glaring at the dark.

"I can't work,” he told Marie. “Have 'em tell the models to go to blazes."

The streets showed spurts of mustard cloth while he tramped, and he met men he knew, savagely irritated, uplifted, awkward in stiff belts. In his imagination he heard the trailed notes of the dead march; the volley of a burial squad came back from the shadow of Fort Leavenworth.

seemed quite clear. He must go on loving Judson, bear unconquered to the verge of being that high and holy warmth, guard it, cherish it, and protect it. He bathed in icy water and sat down at his desk.

you

"Dear Jud," he wrote, "I am sending this to your office as I can't find in the telephone-book. Since this order to the militia was published I have been in a horrible state of mind. Come and see me before you go if you can bring yourself to it. I have never stopped thinking of you as my best and dearest friend, and nothing has altered my feeling for you. If you hate me so much that you cannot do this, I-"

A cloud passed over his brain, the pen broke in his fingers.

with

"O Lord!" he said, "he might n't even read it." He wrote: "I will put up it the best I can, but I think more of you than of any one else in the world. Ben."

He addressed the envelop carefully, and put a special-delivery stamp upon it. His brain had become confused once more, and in cure of this he walked into the nursery before luncheon. Young Juddy was playing with a large red elephant, the twins were engrossed in their noontime orangejuice, and the Yankee nurse told Eben she thought it was real dreadful about this

wanted anything dear. about him for chains to his feet.

Mr. Letellier was lunching with them, and

he began at once upon the war.

"By Jove!" he said, "Wilson can't get out of it now! No. We 're in for it, dirty, ugly business."

"What kind of cocktail do you want, sir?" gasped Eben by the sideboard.

"Martini. Gives an old man quite a thrill, the boys down by the armory; and, by Jove! I had a turn. Come here, Grandson."

"What sort of turn, Dad?" asked Marie. "Saw a young chap going into a hotel near, artillery clothes, big, strapping fellow. I

tellier stated, steering the red elephant among the table covers.

"Yes, but why?" Juddy persisted, without interest.

Eben bent his lips on the soft head. "Because he 's the finest man alive," he said softly. "Will you excuse me, sir? I'd forgotten to 'phone some one."

He descended into Park Avenue and turned down the wide, rain-pooled street. It was quite empty; only shuttered windows

thought it was Ben for a minute; dead image of him. That was why I asked you if he was here when I came in."

"That must have been Judson," said Eben, spilling gin on the Portuguese embroidery.

"Oh, yes, your brother. Well, you must be pretty worried," said Mr. Letellier, heartily.

"My name 's Judson," said Judson, reverting to his father's knee. "Why 'm I named Judson?"

"For your uncle, of course," Mr. Le

looked upon his going. The June sun had burned through the oily clouds of the morning and lit the drenched' flag of the armory tower. Even so far off he could see a mustard uniform on the steps before the arched grill, and the wet granite beckoned him. People strolled or scurried from the pausing trolleys. No one passed Eben as he walked, cursing himself, down the pleasant, wealthy street, and he reasoned that New York, the world, would be like this vacancy with Jud gone from it, a stolid desolation, a sunny tomb.

He came to the last block of the east side,

which ends at the armory corner in a lawn, iron fenced, with almost rural shrubs and a faded Tudor house, inept residue of some less urban day. Eben kept his eyes on the armory tower, stupidly archaic, crushing the vista of further commerce, and brushed his hand on the pickets of the iron fence. A man in uniform cut obliquely from the subway stairs and came. toward him. The color brought his gaze down, and he saw Judson, his artillery cap a little pushed from his brow, the trim coat lining his unchanged splendor,

The smile was gone before he said so much, and Judson raised his hand in a gesture as if he thrust something away. He stared at Eben with black eyes.

"Hated you, Ben? Hate? I don't know --what do you mean?" His cap slid off, and he stooped to pick it up; held it, shaking, in one hand, put it on again, still staring. "I don't understand. I wrote you, and you did n't answer me. I waitedI'd been waiting for you hours in the station that day, and you cut me. I don't know what you mean."

"You wrote me! No, Juddy, you did n't!"

"I did! I did!" cried Judson, beating his fist on the iron. "I did! That afternoon! I posted it myself. I can tell you what I wrote. And you never said you 'd forgive me; that you saw how it was. And you cut me! Could n't you see? I was crazy that morning in Gloucester. You were going away, and I was sick, sick as a dog. It was those damned doughnuts."

Eben shook his head because seeing Jud's face tore him, and hearing Jud speak washed him of years.

"I never got any letter, Juddy. You've got to believe that. And seeing you smile that way in the station, I thought you were done with me. What did you say?"

Judson shut his eyes and bit his lip. Two tears had run down his cheeks, and the drying path of them gleamed.

"Just a sec. I can tell you exactly every word. Just a minute, Ben. It wentthis way."

Eben listened as the voice dropped word after word, nodding to the throb of it. "I never got it, Juddy. Why did you smile at me that day in the station? I'd been waiting all fall. I was going to try to-soften you down somehow and show you I was all right-get you back-'

"Get me back! I was going to get you back. You mean to say you were n't angry? I don't see how you were n't. How could I help smiling? I'd been waiting. hours."

His eyes were gray now, and the smile came back, bringing no shudder with it.

"And I," Eben put in quickly, "was going down to enlist so I could be somewhere near you, see you maybe; not come back if you did n't. I wrote you just now, asking you to come to see me. It's gone to your office, Jud. You don't think I was ever angry! I was n't."

For a moment Judson was in heaven; then he groaned.

"You 're not coming to Mexico? No! for God's sake-Ben, if you do still love me, stay home. It won't be long. Nothing 'll happen to me. I'm as strong as a horse, and you 've got your wife and kids and your shoulder. Yes, I know. I know all about you. I 've kept people busy finding out about you. Ben, I 'phoned your place just now, and your wife told me you'd be back directly. I was just walking up; I swear I was."

He had surged in so close to Eben that their sleeves touched.

"You come along home with me, Juddy, and eat lunch. Ria's father's there. No, I won't go to Mexico. It may not be anything, anyhow. I've treated you like a dog. I won't hurt you again, ever. You have n't had lunch, have you?"

"I don't know. No, I have n't. I've got to be at the armory at ten."

"Well," said Eben, "it 's not two yet. And-when do you go?"

"Search me. I fixed up my will in He got into step with Eben, turning north. "Gave it to young Jud. He looks like us, does n't he? I saw a picture. But he won't get it for a long time. By George! it's raining again!"

But

They began to chatter, with proud sidewise glances to be sure of reality. Eben, marching along, could not be quite sure. By and by his hand slipped into the crook of Judson's elbow and clung there as they walked up the quiet street.

THE HE great European War has already lasted long; it may still last long. Save for some unforeseen event, unhappily it can be brought to a closeand the fault is not ours-only through an increase of destruction.

But the world does not come to an end: it is simply transformed. Death is only one aspect of eternal life; destruction is only the troubled sleep of resurrections. Let us turn our eyes for a moment from this wild crisis. We know that it will end in the triumph of right. Let us try from now on not to picture in mind a theoretical renascence of the dreams of visionaries, but to correct the balancesheet of our deficits, to face our difficulties like men, and, recognizing our mistakes and meditating on our faults, strive to escape their recurrence. Let us seek the remedies that exist for all ills.

But how reconstruct? Reconstruct the body and the soul? It is not too early to consider all this, because it will demand much time and attention. We must deliberate, discuss, exercise our critical faculties, cultivate enthusiasm, coördinate our endeavors. During peace Germany had prepared for war; we must not await the end of war to prepare for peace.

WHEN the husbandman sees his fields laid waste by hail, storm, drought, or fire, if he is wise he does not wring his hands, curse the heavens, or collapse in fruitless despair; but he turns to his granaries, where in years of abundance he has put aside a reserve store of wheat and provender, and at once prepares for a new sowing and a new harvest. In just such a sense Europe has a granary-a granary that has made itself. America is that granary.

For several centuries certain men, fired

by the love of adventure or impatient at the restraint imposed on them by old laws. or too constricted territory, have crossed the Atlantic to form themselves into a new nation, freer, more energetic, more idealistic, and at the same time more practical, settling there in an immense land the degenerate natives of which, in their ignorance of any way to turn it to the best account, had left barren of man's cultivation.

Sometimes these hardy pioneers had sought unknown regions under the spur of persecution; sometimes they had gone through a longing for adventure, drawn to the New World by the great expectations it held out. They were not exiled; they uprooted themselves from their country's soil, impelled by that migratory impulse that in the past as well as to-day has always been the point of departure of new civilizations.

Now, these men, after having won their independence through a foreign war, and cemented their different racial tendencies and aspirations by civil war, have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a security and prosperity that their native lands no longer know. But although they are Americans and only Americans, they cannot forget, and ought not forget, that their ancestors were Europeans. Most certainly they have worked out their own destiny in the New World: they have cleared the land and peopled the wilderness, with their own hands they have built opulent and flourishing cities that rival the most famous cities of ancient times; but this stupendous economical and moral development they have accomplished well through the European training and culture that they carried with them, and which have brought forth results wholly unexpected.