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 to Ingleside one twilight with his hands full of delicate pink sprays. He stalked up the steps of the veranda and laid them on Mrs. Blythe’s lap.

“Because Shirley isn’t here to bring them,” he said in his funny, shy, blunt way.

“And you thought of this, you darling,” said Anne, her lips quivering, as she looked at the stocky, black-browed little chap, standing before her, with his hands thrust into his pockets.

“I wrote Jem today and told him not to worry ’bout you not getting your mayflowers,” said Bruce seriously, “cause I’d see to that. And I told him I would be ten pretty soon now, so it won't be very long before I’ll be eighteen and then I'll go to help him fight, and maybe let him come home for a rest while I took his place. I wrote Jerry, too. Jerry’s getting better, you know.”

“Is he? Have you had any good news about him?”

“Yes. Mother had a letter today, and it said he was out of danger.”

“Oh, thank God,” murmured Mrs. Blythe, in a half-whisper.

Bruce looked at her curiously.

“That is what father said when mother told him. But when I said it the other day when I found out Mr. Mead’s dog hadn’t hurt my kitten,—I thought he had shooken it to death, you know—father looked awful solemn and said I must never say that again about a kitten. But I couldn’t understand why, Mrs. Blythe. I felt awful thankful, and it must have been God that saved Stripey, because that Mead dog had ’normous jaws and oh, how it shook poor Stripey. And so why