excitements now: her children always going and returning. Mildred, Mrs. Crittenden Rutledge, had left for Iowa only two days before, having spent two months with her little family at Chatsworth; now Kent was almost home; and in less than a month the Greens would make their annual move to Wellington. Sue, the eldest daughter, married to young Cyrus Clay, lived within a few miles of Chatsworth and seemed the only one who was a fixture. Paul’s newspaper work kept him in Louisville most of the time and John, the doctor, made flying visits to his home but had to make his headquarters in the city for fear of missing patients. Ernest, the eldest son, was threatening to come home and settle at Chatsworth, but that was still an uncertainty.

“I must read you Judy’s letter, Mother. I know you will feel as uneasy as we do about her. Edwin thinks she should come home, but I think she could hardly leave, not knowing something[25] more definite about her mother and father, who may be bottled up in Germany indefinitely.”

[25]

“Only think of the sizzle Mr. Kean will make when they finally draw the cork,” laughed Mrs. Brown; but when Molly read the whole of Judy’s letter to her, the laughter left her countenance and she looked very solemn and disturbed.

“Poor Kent!” she sighed.

“I wonder what he will do,” from Molly.

“Do? Why, he will do what the men of his blood should do!” Mrs. Brown held her head very high and her delicate nostrils quivered in the way her family knew meant either anger or high resolve. “He will go to France and either stay and protect Judy or bring her back to his mother.”

“But, Mother, are you going to ask this of him? Maybe he won’t think it is the right thing to do.”

“Of course, I am not going to ask it of him. I just know the ‘mettle of his pasture.’”

“But the expense!”[26]

[26]

“Expense! Molly, you don’t sound like yourself. What is expense when your loved ones are in danger?”

“But I can’t think that Judy could be in real danger.”

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