the hour for graduation exercises came, when he and his classmates received their diplomas from the hands of the Secretary of War, who in April had presented theirs to the real class of 1917 with the same simple ceremony, most of Bob's fellow graduates paused to think how many of that class had already followed General Pershing to the battle-field. The Secretary's address, always direct and brief, this year became suddenly true and real and vivid as he spoke, summoning the old ideals of the corps, and listening, Bob saw the heights of patriotism and sacrifice no longer dimly splendid but close at hand, and that hour near when every ounce of valor and endurance would be sorely needed which the twenty-year-old lieutenant could summon to his service. Even "Benny Havens'" familiar words were changed to the singers and quickened into life. "May we find a soldier's resting-place, beneath a soldier's blow, With room enough beside our grave for Benny Havens, oh!" But after it was over, Bob's gay smile chased away the shadow from his parents' eyes in the moment he came to shake hands and be congratulated before he hurried off to say a hundred good-byes. They were all to leave West Point by the noon train on graduation day, and Lucy could hardly wait with reasonable patience to get Bob safely home. P 62 P 62 "I'm afraid something or other might change their minds about your leave," she explained apologetically. "Though I suppose they could do it just as well after you get home." "Just exactly," said Bob laughing. Lucy made no secret of her devotion to her brother, and neither did he of returning it. Lucy was young for her age, and part of the reason was that Bob had always made a pet of his little sister, but Lucy, on the other hand, had got him out of scrapes and begged off punishments for him from the time she was four and could just manage to make her father understand her pleadings when Bob's ten-year-old naughtiness had come to grief. Though they were six years apart they had grown up companionably together, and had hardly known a parting until Bob became a West Pointer. And now Lucy dreaded and tried not to think of the parting to come. In her ears as in her mother's, the Secretary of War's
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