"I have wondered." "Many people have," she said, with simple frankness.

Then--"I am going to tell you something, dear boy, that only two people in the world beside myself ever knew, and they are both dead, many years now.

I am going to tell you, because I feel--because I think--that, perhaps, it may help you a little.

I, too, Brian, had my dreams when I was a girl,--my dreams of happiness,--such as every true woman hopes for;--of a home with all that home means;--of a lover-husband;--of little ones who would call me 'mother';--and my dreams ended, Brian, on a battlefield of the Civil War.

He went from me the very day we were promised.