that the young eyes looking out on life were so clear perhaps out of my own heart she said perhaps out of the village perhaps out of my book of and that is why i think my mother s lot needs no over she went away in the full tide of her e a l happiness it is for ourselves we may grieve not her and you say you knew her very well she went on gently but have been before she married father for he did not seem to know your name when your mother wrote to him had the afternoon grown suddenly colder the shivering note of a willow filled up the moment of silence before he turned to her and said so you have known my name all along i think you must be major she said and wondered to see how haggard he had gone all at once for during the past minutes he had seemed to grow younger and i am glad you have come home to your mother she added softly for she said you were her only son and she a widow yes she is happy now he said as one whose thoughts were not in his words we are going to settle down together in the country next month i was always a bad correspondent and she thought that you must be dead said sighing but it was poor frank who died what on earth is the link between him and me said the soldier a flush of something that looked like anger rising to his brow everywhere i am received for him taken for a dull echo of him � a that bears some resemblance to the dead hero i m positively sick of hearing myself called and being clapped on the shoulder every time i venture to go to my club by some man who vows he used to know me imder another name but was there any resemblance between you said sitting erect and understanding job s mistake better there was the likeness that may exist between two e fair men of exactly the same height and build he said carelessly though i never saw it myself men dropped like flies in those days and looked less at each other s faces than at the enemy but our resemblance was a matter of common remark in the regiment then the circumstances of our joining were almost identical both had sold out of the guards both had applied for leave of service in the war at the same time and both for the same reason though they alone knew it � a bad of some years standing so for the short time we fought together we were friends and when one died the other must needs be received as his friend s ghost � it was the commonplace order of our looks that did it i suppose added major still with that impatient flush on his brow but how men in their senses can pretend to recognise in middle age one out of a pair of yellow haired boys i can t imagine there never wa an uncommon in either of our faces there are hundreds like us to be met with in the streets any day � are there said a little coldly at this of frank � i have always heard very differently but i see that you never really liked him or knew how to value him � did i not he said with a queer smile � yet we were friends enough to have no secrets from each other save one and that concerned a woman and on the eve of battle we exchanged he paused abruptly and said no more frank was not a lad when he died said he was nearly twenty seven � six years older than perhaps you were old r � though you need not be so very glad of that now she added looking round at him with s a little touch of spite that even an angel indulge in if you her favourite saint but he only smiled and she laughed so that peace was ly mail restored them though her next question it pray said she were both your for one and the same person she was looking at him earnestly as though by his reply she might � nd the key to an that puzzled ner why do you ask that he said his eyes steady though his colour changed because job told me once that frank loved my mother she said resting her cheek on one hand and looking at him thoughtfully but she loved father best and of course she married him did you love her too and is that why you speak of her so tenderly and love so you know i love you child he said turning to her swiftly god bless you for saying that � yes i did love her and i lost her only to find her once more � and once more � to lose her no not lost she said i will love you for my mother s sake and my own and you will forgive father if he wronged you it was but he had started up she sat alone on her green throne and he was standing below in the green hollow gazing straight before him as if through the he saw some thing approach good bye uttle one � little child v he said turning to her suddenly as she stood half longing half fearing to descend and she saw in his eyes the look the tears that she had surprised in them once before only one thing could ever bring me back � your being in trouble which please god you never shall be x good bye she said gently asking no questions as some children and women god knows and vex a man s soul even while he loves them but when he 