“Yes,” she breathed after a pause, in conviction, as she pressed her mother’s hands.  “Yes, you have a gift of making things simple and clear.”

Then she looked up to Lanstron and the flame in her eyes, whose leaping, spontaneous passion he already knew, held something of the eternal, as her arms crept around his neck.

“You are life, Lanny!  You are the destiny of to-day and to-morrow!”

* * * * *

Though it was very late autumn now, such was the warmth of the sun that, with a wrap, Mrs. Galland was sitting on the veranda.  She was content—­too content to go to town.  As she had said to Marta, no doubt it would be a wonderful sight, but she had never cared for public celebrations since she had lost her husband.  She could get all the joys of peace she wanted looking at the garden and the landscape; and it did not matter at all now if Marta were twenty-seven, or even if she were thirty or thirty odd.

For the last week the people of La Tir had been returning to their homes, and with the early morning those from the country districts had come swarming in for the great day.  Faintly she heard the cheers of the crowds pouring toward the frontier—­cheers for the Gray premier and cheers for Lanstron and for Turcas as they gathered for a purpose which looked further ahead than the mere ratification of the very simple terms of peace that left the white posts where they were before the war.

“I would rather meet you here than on your range,” said Lanstron to Turcas.

“You certainly find me in a more genial frame of mind than you would have if you had met me there.  And I am very delighted that things have turned out as they have,” replied Turcas.  As soldiers of a common type of efficiency, who understood each other, they might exchange ideas.

Marta in the family carriage, surrounded by her children, looked on.  Hugo Mallin, who had suggested getting acquainted with the Browns in a common manoeuvre, witnessed his dream come true in miniature.  His sturdy sweetheart had become a heroine of the home town since the newspapers had published the whole story of her lover’s insubordination, and how he had stood at the white posts rallying stragglers, which appealed to the sentiment of the moment.  People pointed her out as an example of the loyalty of conviction.  His father and mother, far from hiding their faces in shame, carried their heads high in parental distinction.

There was nothing unfamiliar to the student of human nature in campaigns, which many historians overlook, so keen are they to get their dates and circumstantial details correct, in the way that the Gray and the Brown veterans fraternized in groups, crossing and recrossing the frontier line as they labored with each other’s tongues.  This frequently comes with peace, when the adversaries have been of the same metal and standards of civilization.  The new thing was the theme of their talk.  They had little