It was unfortunate that the Artists' Festival should have fallen on the evening of the day succeeding the formal declaration of war, or, as some of the younger people put it, that war should have been declared on the eve of the Festival; for, they urged, the arrangements for the Festival had been made before war had been even thought of, and so, if the President and Congress had only waited a day—

But public affairs take their course, and Boston is a very small corner of this large country, and though some persons may have absented themselves from a sense of duty to their country, Brenda agreed with Ralph that these never would be missed, so crowded did the hall prove after the French play had ended and the seats had been removed.

The patronesses, seated on a dais on one side of the hall, were gorgeous in robes of cloth of gold, with the elaborate head-dresses of the time.

The procession as it passed along was well worth seeing,—the trumpeters at the head, the craftsmen and village folk, the brown-robed monks singing a solemn chant, crusaders in scarlet coats, knights in armor, ladies in sweeping trains, and everywhere the high-horned cap with its graceful and inconvenient veil.

On the stage at the end of the hall a French play was given, perfectly rendered, complete in every detail of dress and scenery as well as of acting. But it was a tragedy, acted so perfectly that Brenda, perhaps, was not the only one who found it too gloomy for the occasion. The tournament that followed, in which two hobby-horse knights tilted against each other, was much more to her taste.

"Why, Brenda Barlow! I was wondering if we should see you."

Brenda looked up in surprise. The voice was surely Belle's, and immediately she recognized her friend. Belle did not wait for questions after the first greetings.

"Oh, a party of us came on from Washington last night. The rest are going back on Thursday, but I shall stay in New York for a month. Annabel didn't come, nor Arthur either. You must have been awfully disappointed that he wouldn't take any interest. I've always thought he was a little uncertain. How do you like my costume? We ordered them at the last minute from a costumer. I think he did very well, considering the time. Tell me, is mine frightfully unbecoming? I've been trying to make Mr. De Lancey tell me, but he simply says it's indescribably fetching. I can't be sure whether or not he's in earnest. Oh, let me present him to you; I forgot that you did not know each other."

A moment later, separated from her own party, she was walking with Belle and Mr. De Lancey into the adjacent supper-room, which had been arranged in semblance of a rose-garden. They ate sandwiches and currant buns served to them in baskets, and drank lemonade from pewter mugs. The rooms had been rather cool.

"It's the medieval chill," replied Brenda, when Belle asked her why she was so quiet.

"I believe it's worse in this rose-garden than in the large hall. I'm afraid that these paper roses will become frostbitten."

Soon Tom Hearst and Julia, in their search for Brenda, came upon her in the garden.

"Well, here you are! We've been looking everywhere. The rest of the group has gone upstairs to be photographed. There's a man with a flashlight in one of the studios. Aren't you coming?"

The posing of the group took some time, and then there were single pictures, and Agnes and Ralph were taken together.

An idea came to Brenda. "Why shouldn't we form a group by ourselves?" Brenda had turned to Tom Hearst with her question.

"I should say so," he responded enthusiastically. "I mean certainly. How shall I stand, or rather mayn't I prostrate myself at your feet as your humble page?"

"No, no, how absurd you are!" for Tom was already kneeling in an attitude of devotion.

"It's after twelve," the photographer reminded them, "and there are several waiting."

"In other words," said Tom, "we ought to hurry. So look pleasant, Miss Barlow,—that is, as pleasant as you can under the circumstances," and Brenda assumed her stateliest pose, having first seen that her train was spread out to its broadest extent.

"Really," exclaimed Ralph, who stood near, "you must send a copy of the picture to Arthur."

Brenda did not reply, but when they were again among the gay crowd she was quieter than she had been before, and to the astonishment of Agnes she was ready to go home long before the carriage came.

But, strange to say, Pamela, the conscientious, was much less disturbed than she should have been by the thought that this was the hour of her country's danger. The artistic beauty of the whole scene was such that for the time it occupied her mind completely, and she and Julia, with Tom and Philip as attendant cavaliers, were quite care free as they wandered among the gay throng. Yet her mind was turned a little toward the war when Philip began to tell her of his difficulties.

"In the natural course of events," he said, "I should have been in the Cadets. But I had thought I'd wait a year or two. Now the only thing is for me to enlist, or get an appointment as officer. They say that the President will appoint any number of officers. There is only one thing—"

Pamela waited for him to continue, and at last he took up the broken thread.

"I haven't said much about it to other people, but my father is far from well this spring. I notice this in little things, and he depends so on me that I hesitate about taking a step that will lead to my leaving home just now."

"It is often hard to choose between two duties," said Pamela; "but I believe the general rule is to choose the nearest, and in this case that is evidently your father."

"Where have you been all the evening, Philip? I have looked everywhere for you." Edith's voice had an unwonted note of irritation.

"Why, Edith, child, aren't you having a good time?"

"Oh, I don't know; I've had to listen to such a lot of stuff from Belle, and I haven't seen half the people I promised to meet."

"There, there, child, I know how you feel; Belle has been talking too much, but I will take care of you," and Philip pulled Edith's arm within his own. "A big brother is useful sometimes," he added, for he saw that Edith was a little perturbed. A moment later Nora joined the group, followed by Julia and Tom Hearst, and soon Brenda joined them.

"Why, here we have almost all the old crowd," exclaimed Tom. "If only Will were here—"

"And Ruth; you mustn't forget her."

"Indeed, no, and I dare say that he is thinking of us. I fancy that at this present moment he is just wild to be on this side of the world. With his exalted ideas of patriotism, it must be torture to him that he isn't on hand when there's fighting to be done."

"It seems to me that your sword hasn't been brandished very fiercely, at least, since the President's proclamation."

"Ah! just wait. Within a month I may be waving a flag in Cuba. This sound of revelry by night may be the last that I shall hear for a long time. My uniform may not be as becoming to me as this costume," and Tom threw back his head and strutted a few steps, as if to display to the best advantage the artistic costume that Mr. Weston had designed for him,—a most effective one with its crimson doublet, slashed sleeves, and long, silk trunk hose.

"Oh, don't talk about war," cried Brenda, almost pettishly, while Nora, whose sparkling eyes and bright smile showed that she, at least, had enjoyed the evening, said gently, "Come, Brenda, there are Agnes and Ralph beckoning to us; I suppose they wish to count us all to see that we are safe and sound before they start for home."

A little bantering, a word or two of good-bye to passing friends, and the merry group started for home, never, although they knew it not then,—never to be together again as they had been that evening.

In the next few weeks war news was of chief importance, and Brenda, never a newspaper reader, now turned to the daily papers with great interest.

One afternoon she came into Julia's room at the Mansion with her eyes suspiciously red.

"You haven't been crying?"

"Oh, no, not exactly crying, but—"

At this time a tell-tale tear fell, and Brenda dabbed her eyes fiercely with a crumpled handkerchief.

"There, there, tell me all about it," said Julia.

"Oh, it's nothing. Only I've just been at a meeting at the State House."

Then, by dint of a little questioning, Julia learned that Brenda had read the notice of a meeting to be held at the State House in the interests of the Massachusetts troops that should go to the war, and that she had decided to attend it.

"Oh, it was dreadful," she said, not restraining the tears that were now undeniably falling. "They talked about bandages and ambulances and the hundreds that would be killed, and the dreadful things that happened in the Civil War, and I couldn't help thinking how terrible it would be for Arthur and Tom and all the others we know."

"Arthur?" queried Julia; "I knew that Tom was going, but with his regiment from New York—but Arthur, why, he has never been in the militia?"

"Oh, no," responded Brenda, "it's all his being in Washington. I wish that he had never heard of Senator Harmon. It seems that he's to have a commission in the regular army. The President is to make any number of new officers, and you have to have influence. Ralph had a letter this morning,—and I know he'll be killed."

"Nonsense, child! If there is any fighting, it will be only on sea."

"Oh, you should have heard them talk at the meeting to-day; and Papa says that every young man should be ready to fight. He only wishes that he was young enough. Amy writes that Fritz Tomkins is crazy to leave college and volunteer, but his uncle won't let him, because his father is in China. But lots of men are leaving college to go into the army. Don't you think 'tis very noble in Arthur?"

The last sentence was a change from the main subject, for Arthur's college years were far away; but it showed where Brenda's heart lay, and Julia did not laugh at her.

"Come," she said, "let us go upstairs; you have never visited the home economics class, and you are just in time for it."

So hand in hand the two cousins went upstairs, and if Brenda was less cheerful than usual, only Julia noticed this.

"The dusty class," as some of the younger girls called it, because "Dust and its dangers" had been the subject of the lessons.

"How businesslike it is!" exclaimed Brenda, glancing around the plain room, fitted with its long wooden table, plain walls, at one end of which were many glass bottles and tubes.

"Test tubes," explained Julia, as Brenda asked a question; "and these gas jets that rise from the table are very useful in some of their experiments."

"Yes, that is some of Pamela's Ruskin," Julia added, as Brenda stopped before a simply framed card on which in illuminated text was the following:

"There are three material things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them.

"These are Pure Air, Water, and Earth.

"There are three immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them also.

"These are Admiration, Hope, and Love."

"It looks very scientific," said Brenda, "with all those bottles and tubes. I should call it a regular laboratory."

"So it is," responded Julia; "and though the girls are untrained, and rather young to understand thoroughly the scientific value of much that is taught them, they do enjoy the experiments."

At this moment the teacher entered the room.

"Tell me, Miss Soddern," said Julia, after introducing Brenda to the teacher,—"tell me if the girls have had any success with their bacteria; I know that they are very much interested in their little boxes."

"Oh, I'm going to have them report this morning. You must wait until they come."

In a moment the girls filed in, Concetta, Luisa, Gretchen, Haleema, and the rest whom Brenda knew best, and with them two or three girls from outside who were members of the League; for in this, as in other classes, it had seemed wise to enlarge the work a little. So the class had taken in some of those whom the membership in the League had interested in things that otherwise they might not have had the interest to study.

As they stood at their places around the table, Miss Soddern gave a resumÉ of what they had already learned about dust and its dangers. They talked with a fluency that surprised Brenda about bacteria and yeasts and spores and moulds, and in most cases showed by examples that they knew what they were talking about.

"I am glad that all these bacteria are not harmful," said Brenda, "for otherwise I should stand in fear of instant death when caught in one of our east winds," and she looked with interest at the plate that showed a great many little spots irregularly distributed within a circle. Each spot represented a colony of bacteria, and though the showing was rather overwhelming, it was not nearly as bad as another exposure made at a crossing in a certain city where the old-fashioned street-cleaning methods prevailed. An exposure made just after the carts had been collecting heaps of dirt showed an almost incredible number, quite beyond counting.

So interesting did Miss Soddern make her lesson that Brenda stayed quite through the hour.

"I've gathered one or two new ideas on the subject of trailing skirts," she whispered to Julia in one of the intervals of the lesson. "I always thought it was just a notion, this talk about their being so unclean, but now I shall always think of them as regular bacteria collectors. Also I've learned one or two things about dusting, and I'm going to watch our maid to-morrow, and if she isn't using a moist cloth, I'll frighten her by asking her why she insists on distributing death-dealing germs around the room."

Half of the class that day had to report the result of their own observation of bacteria colonies collected on the gelatine plate, and half were to prepare the little glass boxes to take home. Brenda watched the process with great interest,—the preparation of the boxes in a vacuum, so that there would be no air inside them when they should be first exposed in the new locality.

"It's something," said Julia, "to get these girls to acquire habits of accuracy."

"Oh, it reminds me of the class in physics at Miss Crawdon's," replied Brenda. "I never would take it myself, but some of the girls said that it was splendid; it taught one to be accurate."

At that moment Miss Soddern began to address the girls. They had been so absorbed in their work that they had talked very little during the hour.

"How many of you have anything to report regarding the boxes that you took home last week."

One by one the outside girls gave accounts of their observations, each one vying with the others to describe the most prolific growth of bacteria.

"As the boxes were to be exposed simply in their living-rooms, I am surprised at the results," said the teacher in an aside to Julia; "I'm afraid that some one must have been stirring up the dust. What does your family think of these experiments?" she continued, turning to a bright-eyed American girl.

"Oh, they're so interested," the girl replied. "You've no idea how they've watched it; and since the bacteria have begun to develop,"—she said this with an important air—"they show it to company. Why, you may like to know that our visitors consider it more entertaining than the family album."

Miss Soddern herself did not dare to smile at this remark, but Julia and Brenda hastily excused themselves.

"Audible smiling," said Brenda, "is more excusable out here than it would be in the school-room," and then both laughed outright.

"I never did care for family photograph albums," said Julia, "and now I see how easy it would be to have a scientific substitute."