THE CHANCES OF LIFE
Ralph had started so early that morning that he had had no time to get breakfast. Now he began to feel the pangs of hunger most acutely.
"I expect mother will have kept something for me," he said to himself, as he descended the slope. "I hope she is not worrying about what has become of me."
He looked right and left for his father, expecting to find him at work in the fields, but David was nowhere in evidence.
Ralph made a bee-line across the fields, and was soon in the shelter of the little homestead. He found his father and mother and his sister Ruth still seated at the breakfast-table. Ruth pushed back her chair at the sound of his footsteps and rose to her feet.
"Why, Ralph," she said, "where have you been? Mother's been quite worried about you."
"If that's all she has to worry her, she needn't worry much," he said, with a laugh. "But has anything happened? You all look desperately sober."
"We've heard some news that has made us all feel very anxious," David answered wearily. "We've sat here talking about it for the last half-hour."
"Then the news concerns us all?" Ralph questioned, with a catch in his voice.
"Very closely, my boy—very closely. The truth is, Julian Seccombe has got wounded out in Egypt."