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I had a terrible thought that she intended trying to purchase Charlie Sands by a gift. But I might have known her high integrity. She would not stoop to a bribe. And, as a matter of fact, happening to stop at the Ostermaiers’ that evening to show Mrs. Ostermaier how to purl, I found that dear Tish, remembering the anniversary of his first sermon to us, had presented Mr. Ostermaier with a handsome watch.

It was on the fourth of June that I had another visit from Charlie Sands. He is usually a most amiable young man, but on that occasion he came in glowering savagely, and on sitting down on Aggie’s knitting, which was on steel needles, he flung it across the room, and had to spend quite a little time apologizing.

“The truth is,” he said, “I’m so blooming upset that I’m not myself. Let me put these needles back, won’t you? Or do they belong in some particular place?”

“They do,” Aggie retorted grimly. “And for a young man who will be thirty-two tomorrow morning—-“

“Evening,” he corrected her, with a sort of groan. “I see she’s got you too. Look here,” he went on, “I’m in trouble, and I’m blessed if I see my way out. I want to register tomorrow. I may not be drawn, because I’m an unlucky devil and always was. But–I want to do my bit.”

“Well,” I observed, tartly. “I guess no one can prevent you. Go and do it, and say nothing.”

“Not at all,” he replied, getting up and striding up and down the room. “Not a bit of it. I grant you it looks simple. Wouldn’t any one in his senses think that a young and able-bodied man could go and put his name down as being willing to serve his country? Why, she herself–she’s crazy to go. I’d like to bet a hat she’ll get there before long, too, and into the front trenches.”

“Oh, no!” Aggie wailed suddenly.

“But not I,” went on Charlie Sands fiercely. “Not I. How she ever got around that old fool Ostermaier I don’t know. But she has. He’s appointed her an assistant registrar in his precinct, which is mine. And she’ll swear until she’s black in the face that I’m over age.”

“Can’t you have the place opened before seven in the morning?” I suggested.

“I’ve been to him, but he says the law is seven o’clock. Besides,” he added bitterly, “she knows me, and as like as not she’ll sleep there, to be on hand to forestall me.”

As I look back, I am convinced that a desire to do his bit, as he termed it, was only a part of his anger that evening. The rest was the feeling that Tish’s superior acumen had foiled him. He had a truly masculine hatred of being thwarted by a woman, even by a beloved aunt.

“Well,” he said at last, picking up his hat. “I’ll be off.” He went to the door, but turned back and glowered at us both, although I am sure we had done nothing whatever. “But mark my words, and remind her of them the day after tomorrow. This thing’s not over yet. She’s pretty devilish clever”–(I regret to record this word, but he was greatly excited)–“but she hasn’t all the brains in the family.”

For a day that was to contain so much, however, the fifth of June started quietly enough. We telephoned Hannah, and she reported that Tish had left the house at five-thirty, although obliged to go only one block to the engine house which was her destination.

So far as I can learn, for Tish is very uncommunicative about the entire matter, the morning passed quietly enough. She had taken the precaution of having her folding card table and two pillows sent to the engine house, and when Aggie and I arrived at midday she was seated comfortably, with her hat hung on a lamp of the fire truck. When we arrived she was asking the sexton of the Methodist Church, whom she has known for thirty years, if he had lost a leg or an arm.