Chapter XXIV. The Major and the Major's Wife - Page 2

every muscle and every nerve in her slight body taut as a fiddle-string. He smoothed her hair gently and began to talk quietly with her.

"What good times we have had!" he said. "I remember well the very first night I saw you. Do you?"

"Oh," she breathed, "don't speak of it, or I can't hold in."

"Elfie," said Larry, "our Canadian women when they are seeing their men off at the station do not cry; they smile and wave their hands. That is, many of them do. But in their own rooms, like this, they cry as much as they like."

"Oh, Larry, Larry," cried the child, flinging herself upon him. "Let me cry, then. I can't hold in any longer."

"Neither can I, little girl. See, Elfie, there is no use trying not to, and I am not ashamed of it, either," said Larry.

The pent-up emotion broke forth in a storm of sobbing and tears that shook the slight body as the tempest shakes the sapling. Larry, holding her in his arms, talked to her about the good days they had had together.

"And isn't it fine to think that we have those forever, and, whenever we want to, we can bring them back again? And I want you to remember, Elfie, that when I was very lonely and homesick here you were the one that helped me most."

"And you, Larry, oh, what you did for me!" said the child. "I was so sick and miserable and bad and cross and hateful."

"That was just because you were not fit," said Larry. "But now you are fit and fine and strong and patient, and you will always be so. Remember it is a soldier's duty to keep fit." Elfie nodded. "And I want you to send me socks and a lot of things when I get over there. I shall write you all about it, and you will write me. Won't you?" Again Elfie nodded.

"I am glad you let me cry," she said. "I was so hot and sore here," and she laid her hands upon her throat. "And I am glad you cried too, Larry; and I won't cry before people, you know."

"That is right. There are going to be too many sad people about for us to go crying and making them feel worse," said Larry.

"But I will say good-bye here, Larry. I could go to the train, but then I might not quite smile."

But when the train pulled out that night the last face that Larry saw of all his warm-hearted American friends was that of the little girl, who stood alone at the end of the platform, waving both her hands wildly over her head, her pale face effulgent with a glorious smile, through which the tears ran unheeded down her cheeks like rain on a sunny day. And on Larry's face, as he turned away, there was the same gleam of sunshine and of rain.

"This farewell business is something too fierce," he said to himself savagely, thinking with a