trench with fixed bayonet, firm and imperturbable, gazing into the gloom of No Man's Land. Under his feet were the rockings of an earthquake that soon should engulf him. But though the earth were removed his duty remained, and he as a soldier stood firm. A few minutes later, with a reverberating roar, he went up with the mine. The momentary and flashing glimpse of that gallant sentry remains for me my most heroic, soul-enkindling memory of two years of war.

Sometimes in the springing of a mine no warning whatever is given. With a roar that is heard for a hundred miles or more the bowels of the earth burst forth and whole regiments are swept away. Human beings and trenches alike are tossed as from a giant geyser in a soaring flood of fire and smoke and débris.

I saw a mine like this without sprung warning on the Third Canadian Division. My division, the First Canadians, was holding trenches just in front of Hill 60, at Ypres. The Third Division was on our left. It was about eight o'clock on a beautiful June morning; a profound peace was reigning, when, without the slightest warning, there came a deep roar such as I had never heard before, and the trenches to our left were literally swept hundreds of feet into the air. In this awful mine perished MajorGeneral Mercer, C.B., and the flower of the Third Canadian Division. So out of peace profound, by the springing of a mine, the worst aspect of the real front may suddenly reveal itself.

The front-line trench is the Street of Adventure. No matter how quiet the day or night, there is always an air of imminency and expectancy. On this front line Street of Adventure one meets the truest men of his time. There there is a real democracy and a real brotherhood. The mere fact that each is there demands respect from the other.

Among my priceless memories of the real front is that of Junior Headquarters' Mess in the line. Among ourselves we often referred to this mess as the "Finest Club in the World," and its young members have perhaps made a good bid for the title.

The Headquarters' Mess includes the

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 811.-17

Colonel, Adjutant, Medical Officer, and Chaplain, if he is forward. They mess at battalion headquarters, which is a becomingly staid place.

The Junior Headquarters' Mess includes the Scout Officer, Machine-gun Officer, Bombing Officer, Trench-mortar Officer, Intelligence Officer, and Forward Observing Officer. Membership in this, the "Finest Club in the World," is not apt to be of long duration, as its members frequently "go west." During the period of their active membership they represent many of the stars on the stage of the world war. Of course the generals' names are splashed across the bill-boards, but we who have really been there know that these mere boys are the leading actors on the stage. Generals may direct the scenery, but it is for the junior officers to carry out the drama. Hence the saying, "This is a subalterns' war."

In a consequential club, not long ago, I was toted around by a friend who pointed out to me "men of real_importance in the world to-day." Let me point out to you in the dugout of the Suicide Club several young men of real importance on the real front.

It is about the hour of two in the morning, or 2 ack emma, as we say it in the trenches, ack emma standing for A.M. The group are gathered around a table of rough boards on which several gutted candles are burning. The dugout is deep and full of shadow, but the light around the table shows a group with ruddy faces and sparkling eyes. Intelligence Officer, known as "Brains," has received a box of cigars from home, and, true to the communistic instinct of the front line, he has turned them over to the crowd.

The

"This is a little bit of orl right," said Walker, the fair-haired, blue-eyed Scout Officer. He was the most boyish of them all. It seemed like a joke to see such a stripling smoking such a big cigar.

"Go easy on that cheroot, cherub, or another mother's darling will be missing," jeered Sammy Lindsay, the Machine-gun Officer. Walker's answer was to half close his bright blue eyes and to send a cloud of smoke-rings curling up into the shadows. A half-hour before, this unsophisticated youth with

never a care in the world was on the other side of No Man's Land, with his ear against the German parapet, listening to the Fritzes talking in their own trenches. On his breast Walker wore the ribbon of the D.S.O. and of the Military Cross. He was one of the pioneers of raiding, an originator of a new departure in trench warfare.

Walker's battalion was known as the "Kings of No Man's Land," and to watch the nonchalance with which this fair-haired lad and his scouts disappeared over the parapet on a dark night was to understand the meaning of the phrase. Out in the dread country between the trenches they held undisputed sway. Walker was only a boy in appearance, yet into his life already he had crowded the thrilling experience of many men.

Sammy Lindsay, the Machine-gun Officer, who was always twitting Walker about his youth, was not quite a month older than the Scout Officer. These two juveniles were often referred to as the "Heavenly Twins." Sammy was the coolest, nerviest chap that I ever met in France. He has long since "gone west,' winning in his passing the Victoria Cross. But his memory is bright with all old-timers. New-comers, hearing of his exploits to-day, regard them as apocryphal legends.

وو

The Intelligence Officer, known as "Brains," is supposed to be the vade mecum of all knowledge in the front line.

If any information is required the answer invariably is, "Ask Brains." The Trench-mortar Officer and the Bombing Officer hold two very unwholesome jobs, which, strange to relate, are much sought after. As Nibbs Mackay of the bombers cheerfully observed, "Our chances of sprouting daisies are always of the best." The most sought-after positions at the front are not the safe and easy places, but the tasks of greatest danger. When one man will apply for the post as Inspector of Supplies at the base a hundred will volunteer for the bombers or the trench-mortars.

An air of suppressed merriment pervades the dugout of the Suicide Club, and there is always a bubbling over into laughter. A crowd of irrepressibles in the dormitory of a boys' school is the nearest approach to this group in the Junior Headquarters' Mess, only the dormitory does not possess such a uniform exuberance of spirit.

A man at the front who starts out to take it seriously will be in the madhouse in less than a month. But the light-hearted ones, escaping Minnies and Lizzies, may go on indefinitely. The successful soldier of the trenches never loses an opportunity for happiness. He often develops into a more care-free, merry lad than he was at school ten years before. This light heart in the midst of danger and tribulation is our last invincible defense.

I

N spite of those historical words once uttered by our old colonial father, people aren't created free and equal. That's just like a man's way of reasoning. How can people be equal when some of them are made with waving locks and ensnaring features, and others have straight hair and long noses? No, those who are beautiful have a great advantage over everybody else and ought not to have so much credit for being good, because they don't have to spend time worrying about their personal appearances, and can put more thought on growing into upright women.

If I had been beautiful I should not have ruined my sister's wedding. It was going to be in St. Martin's church at high noon, which only means twelve o'clock. I began to take a vital interest in the proceedings only a few days before it was to happen. Let it not be thought from this that I am hardhearted. I did not feel that I was going to lose my dear sister. She was only going as far away as the other end of our lawn, where father had built her a darling little twelve-room cottage with a swimming-pool and an organ. She was plenty near enough to run in and tell mother what was the proper way for me to be reared.

As I say, my real enthusiasm began the day Janet Mallory, one of Elizabeth's bridesmaids, was stricken down with an immortal illness. She caught the mumps. As Elizabeth said, it really was an inconsiderate thing for her to do. Janet knew perfectly well that Elizabeth couldn't get along with only seven bridesmaids and a maid of honor and a ring bearer and a flower girl. Janet had known for weeks that she was to be in the wedding, and then, at the last moment, they said she was a fright. I could not blame Elizabeth for

being mad. The worst of it was that there was no one who could take her place. Janet was small, and the only other small girl Elizabeth knew was to be Janet's partner. That is, small dark girl. All the bridesmaids and even the little flower girl and ring bearer were to be dark, to make a greater contrast to fair-haired Elizabeth, bursting like a lily from her stem in pure white. I did have to hand it to Elizabeth for making an artistic setting for herself. However, Janet Mallory had gone and spoiled it all.

"There is only one thing I can think of,” said mother to Elizabeth, who was walking about in an awful old faded tea-gown because everything good was packed. "I hesitate to mention that, but-"_Here mother dropped her voice so that I could not hear what she said. From this I knew that she was talking about me, and though I made myself appear very much interested in the horse stamping on top of the eleventh mantel clock that had come as a present for Elizabeth, this was a deception, as I was listening to hear every word I could.

"What!" Elizabeth ejaculated, giving me a hard, scrutinizing look which I pretended not to see.

"She is dark," mother whispered, a little louder, "and I believe Janet's dress would just fit her."

"But mother!" And Elizabeth made some earnest but inaudible remarks which I could guess were not complimentary to me.

"Yes, I know." Mother sighed. "And, of course, she is young. I hate to seem to push her. But, after all, she is your sister, and I believe people would understand."

"She isn't so bad looking," Elizabeth admitted, reluctant as people always are to say anything pleasant about a member of the family. "Of course she hasn't Janet's brilliant complexion, and her

hair is fearfully straight, to say nothing of her nose.

my nose.

I knew what she was thinking about It is my greatest misfortune, next to being the youngest in the family. Grandmother Vane says my nose IS exactly like hers, and that when I am older it will be a great mark of beauty. However, this is no comfort to me now, even if true. When I am twenty-five or thirty I shan't care how I look. What I need is to be beautiful now. If Elizabeth would ever lend me a little of her rouge I could make my complexion better, but this she will not do. I have tried red drops, but the effect is not the same.

"We might try Janet's dress on her and see," suggested mother.

"If only she wouldn't do something to spoil the wedding!" Elizabeth is one of the most pessimistic girls I ever knew.

"She won't, surely. You have three more rehearsals, dear, and Barbara will be so pleased to take part that she will be on her best behavior. No one can be sweeter than Barbara when she wants

to.

"Well," Elizabeth sighed, despondently, "let's try the dress. I suppose it's the only thing we can do."

This is how it was decided that I should be one of the bridesmaids in my sister's wedding. Not a very cordial invitation, to be sure, but I did not mind. You simply can't expect cordiality from your own family. And the

dress was a dream—all gold gauze and tulle and showers of tiny pink rosebuds. We were to carry gold French baskets of pink roses and wear big hats that tied under one ear, and the slippers had those adorable Louis heels that I am never allowed to wear. Mother and Elizabeth had to admit that the bridesmaid's dress was becoming to me, though afterward mother tried to take away the effect of their approval, so that I should not be too vain, by telling me to remember that a wedding was a solemn moment and not to do anything foolish. She did not need to remind me of that, for I was already reminded every time I looked at Mr. P. M. Vising, who was taking the part of the groom. If I had been in Elizabeth's place I should have felt positively melancholy. It was bad

enough to think of having to receive him as a brother into the bosom of the family and associate with him at family reunions on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

After all that had been said about my personal appearance, it seemed like the finger of Providence (though now I know it must have been the Evil One) when I saw that very evening in the paper, on Francesca Villette's beauty page, the announcement of two scientific preparations-new discoveries, both of them. One was the description of a girl who had had straight, faded, brittle, dull, scraggy hair which in one night had become thick, glossy, and naturally curly by the use of a wonderful elicksir called Liquid Golderine, and sold at all drug-stores for fifty cents. All you had to do was, on going to bed, moisten a toothbrush with Golderine and carefully draw it through your hair, taking one small strand at a time. Then the next morning you would have a head of hair that would be the despair of all your friends. And the curl wouldn't wash out, either. Having had experience, I can conscientiously say that all this is true, but deceiving. The other piece was about Aurora Complexion. Renewer. It said:

BRING OUT THE HIDDEN BEAUTY OF YOUR FACE!

Why not be fair to look upon? Beneath that soiled, faded, aged complexion is one beautiful as the morning. To-night, on going to bed, apply Aurora Complexion Renewer. While you sleep it will absorb the devitalized skin, revealing the beautiful, fresh, dewey white loveliness underneath. It stimulates the fine muscular fibres of the skin so that the cheeks are flushed with a delicate, dawn-like tint, radiant in its loveliness.

Used by refined women who prefer complexions of true naturalness.

Have you tried it?
In $.25 and $.50 jars.

Well, I hadn't tried it, but I was going to. You could tell that it was a scientific preparation put up by a learned man, or he wouldn't have known all about devitalized skins and muscular fibres. And then, it said it was refined women who used it. When Elizabeth saw me

looking like the dawn she would be wild with jealousy, and have no more to say about Janet Mallory's brilliant complexion. Of course, it was a great misfortune that I could not make any alterations in my nose. I could only hope that people would be so dazzled by my complexion and my hair that they wouldn't notice my nasal member so much. The only hindrance was that my whole financial assests amounted to twenty-seven cents a quarter left from my allowance and two cents which I remembered seeing in Dad's collar-button box. It seemed unlikely that I could get either mother or Elizabeth to lend me the additional seventy-three cents which I would need to buy the Golderine and the Aurora Complexion Renewer. Though I hate to tell it of my own family, I have to confess that both mother and Elizabeth are stingy. Neither of them will ever lend me a cent without first going into all the details of what I want it for and everything. Then, unless it's something I need at school or to help the poor Belgians they will never lend it, anyway. So I borrowed the seventy-three cents of our cook. She did not seem awfully

keen about lending it to me, either; but I promised her faithfully to repay it on the very day I had my next allowance, and if I forgot I told her to charge it to mother. You would think any mother certainly ought to be willing to pay seventy-three cents to have her child made beautiful as the morning with naturally curly hair.

I

After I thought things were all settled, and I had bought the preparations and had told the girls at school that I was to be a bridesmaid, Providence stepped in and spoiled things by bringing Aunt Katharine and Anne Louise from Cleveland for the wedding. The last time I had seen Anne Louise she had been a skinny little thing, all eyes and legs, who didn't care for men. knew, from hearing her quoted as an example to me, that her grades were always a's, and she was a prominent member of the Sunday-school, having been converted in her early youth. You can imagine what such a character ought to look like. So when they came I had one of the shocks of my long lifetime. In the three or four years I hadn't seen her Anne Louise had grown to be the most stunning girl I had ever met. Her