Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
   of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me,
   thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

“It’s just like ‘avin’ mother’s ’and to ’old the little silky one,” Polly murmured sleepily.

The nurse put the poppies beside Polly’s face on the pillow, and drawing a screen around her went on to the next patient.  A case of urgent need detained her at the other end of the ward, and it was not until the dawn was shining blue in the windows that she came back on her rounds.

Polly lay just as she had left her.  The crimson petals lay thick upon her face and hair.  The homesickness and redness of weeping had gone forever from her eyes, for they were looking now upon the King in his beauty!  In her hand, now cold and waxen, she held one little silky poppy, red with edges of white.  Polly had gone home.

There was a whisper among the poppies that grew behind the cookhouse that morning as the first gleam of the sun came yellow and wan over the fields; there was a whisper and a shivering among the poppies as the morning breezes, cold and chill, rippled over them, and a shower of crystal drops mingled with the crimson petals that fluttered to the ground.  It was not until Pearl came out and picked a handful of them for her dingy little room that they held up their heads once more and waved and nodded, red and handsome.

CHAPTER XVII “EGBERT AND EDYTHE”

When Tom Motherwell called at the Millford post office one day he got the surprise of his life.

The Englishman had asked him to get his mail, and, of course, there was the Northwest Farmer to get, and there might be catalogues; but the possibilities of a letter addressed to Mr. Thos.  Motherwell did not occur to him.

But it was there!

A square gray envelope with his own name written on it.  He had never before got a real letter.  Once he had a machinery catalogue sent to him, with a typewritten letter inside beginning “Dear Sir,” but his mother had told him that it was just money they were after, but what would she say if she saw this?

He did not trust himself to open it in the plain gaze of the people in the office.  The girl behind the wicket noticed his excitement.

“Ye needn’t glue yer eye on me,” Tom thought indignantly.  “I’ll not open it here for you to watch me.  They’re awful pryin’ in this office.  What do you bet she hasn’t opened it?” He moved aside as others pressed up to the wicket, feeling that every eye was upon him.

In a corner outside the door, Tom opened his letter, and laboriously made out its contents.  It was written neatly with carefully shaded capitals: 

Dear Tom:  We are going to have a party to-morrow night, because George and Fred are going back to college next week.  We want you to come and bring your Englishman.  We all hope you will come.

   Ever your friend,