there in the middle of three hundred acres, gazing after the car and waving his cap, and I almost broke down then. It seemed almost as if I were deserting my small son among strangers—enemies, perhaps, for he did not know a soul; my little son who had never before been away from home a single night without Eve or me. For Eve had taught him up to that time, and I had done what I could,—with his Latin and the groundings of his Greek, the very beginnings of it,—what one of my students once called the radishes. I had not the heart to inflict science upon him. I hate it. I ought not to, for I was bred in it, and taught it for some years, which are well behind me. But that was small comfort to me then, and I had hard work to keep myself in control all the way home. But Pukkie did not break down. He may have come near it. I do not know. He has never said anything about it. I have—to Eve. She understood. She always understands. That is the comfort of it.

But Eve had made no reply. She was still regarding me with that look that I could not fathom, although I looked deep into her eyes.

"I think I could manage it," I said, feeling strangely uneasy.

"Manage what?" she asked. "Pukkie's going?"

"Heaven forbid! It was that civilian business that I meant. I think I could manage to change my condition."

"No, no. I want you here, Adam. There is no need to change, is there?" I shook my head, and Eve reached out and took my hand. "You need not change—anything."

It was as if with her love for me, she had great sorrow, and great pity; though why I was to be pitied was beyond my understanding. I do not regard myself as a proper subject for pity. But there are many things beyond my understanding. Eve will enlighten me in her own good time. And as we sat, there was another step on the grass behind us, not soft, but hasty. And Eve unclasped her fingers from mine, and turned. It was Ann, the nurse.

"What is it, Ann?" Eve said. "Where's Tidda? Gone again?"

Then Ann explained that she had but turned her back for a minute, had gone into the house for her knitting, and come right back—had run every step of the way going and coming—and Tidda had disappeared. Tidda is our daughter, aged eight. Her name is not Tidda, but Eve, as it should be. She has a propensity for running away, although I do not think that her excursions are planned. She is a true apostle of freedom, and when she observes that nobody is about, she regards it as an opportunity heaven-born, and she makes the most of it. I can hardly blame her. A girl of eight, and tied to the worthy Ann's apron strings! How should I have liked it, at the age of eight? She would sympathize with our aims in this war we have undertaken. But Eve had risen, and was about to go.

"I suppose I had better stop at Cecily's," she said, "and at every house on the road to father's. She may turn up there. Ann can stay here. I wish," she added, laughing, "that I knew some way—"

"I'll go with you."

"I'd love to have you, Adam, but you'd better go around by the shore. Meet me at father's. Good-bye."

And she was gone, swiftly. She always has some ill-concealed anxiety over these disappearances of Tidda's, and so, for that matter, have I. I got up slowly and started toward the head of that steep path to the shore; but stopped halfway, and turned and went to my shed, and got my hoe and my rubber boots. It was yet early in the season for clamming, but my way led past the clam beds, and the tide was almost down, and I might at least see how they were getting on. So, my hoe and my boots in my hand, I went down the steep path, and strode along the shore. And, as I came nearer that place which is ever near my heart—where the sod breaks off to the sand just above my clam beds—I thought I got a glimpse of drapery behind a tree-trunk. There are trees there, pretty near the edge of the three-foot bluff, the beginning of a grove which is Old Goodwin's; and a path runs back to his house. I saw that the gleam of white I had seen was from a white dress, a small white dress, a dress that somehow seemed familiar; and I saw a small leg in the air, its stocking in the process of removal. I stepped forward without caution, and I grinned down at my small daughter. It is impossible to be cross with her, she is always so perfectly confident of having done nothing which she should not have done.

So I grinned down at her, and she looked up and grinned back at me.

"Going in wading," she announced cheerfully, continuing to push the stocking, which did not seem to want to come off.

"Going wading, are you? Well, don't be in a hurry, Tidda. Let's talk it over."

She did not relax her efforts, but she shook her head.

"Haven't got time to talk now," she said. "Daddy, you help me get my stockings off. They won't un-come. They're an awful bother."

"Wait a minute." I stepped back and looked up at my bluff. There was Ann watching me, and evidently anxious. I signalled to her that Tidda was found—we have a code for the purpose, and Ann is letter-perfect in it—and she signalled that she was much relieved and would find Eve and tell her. Then she disappeared.

I sat down beside my daughter. "Now, Tidda," I said, "there are several good reasons why you should not go wading. The water is very cold still, and—"

"Pull this one, daddy," she said, ignoring my remarks, and sticking out toward me the leg with its stocking half off. "If you take hold of the toe and the heel and pull, it'll un-come. I can't do it, because I can't get hold from that end."

I laughed.

"I was saying that the water is very cold, and that mother wouldn't want you to go wading."

She pointed accusingly at my rubber boots. "You're going."

"Not necessarily. I only brought them down in case I should want to."

"Well, I do want to."

"If you had rubber boots and warm stockings under them—"

"Get me some rubber boots."

I sighed and laughed. "I will," I said, "but I can't get them this minute. Will nothing less satisfy you? You sit here, and I'll go and see how the clams are getting on. I will bring you one."

She was on the verge of tears. "I was going to see how the clams were myself. Dig 'em with a stick. I can find 'em. I've found lots."

"What do you do with them when you've found them?"

"We play with 'em, and we had a clambake once."

"Were the clams good?"

"Pretty good. There were six of 'em, one apiece and two for Ann. But she didn't eat hers. She said they weren't done, and that she wasn't a fish to eat raw clams. Oh, look, daddy!"

Old Goodwin's ocean steamer was lying at her anchor, but I could see nothing unusual about her.

"No," said Tidda, "not grandpa's, but out that way. Is it coming in here? It comes fast, doesn't it?"

Set right by Tidda's pointing finger, I saw the steamer, but I could not make out what she was, whether yacht or war vessel. She had the lines of a torpedo boat, and was painted gray, with lines of bull's-eyes along her sides, and no deck to speak of, where one could sit in comfort; but plainly she was no torpedo boat, and as plainly she was not a steam yacht of the common type. She was nearly two hundred feet long, I judged, and of great speed.

"It is coming here," cried Tidda in some excitement. "See! It's going close to