Aladdin rose.

“Margaret,” he said, “this time I’m going like an old friend.  If I make good and live steady, as I mean to do, I shall come back like a lover.  Meanwhile you shall think all things over, and if you think that you can care for me, you shall tell me so when I come back.  And if you conclude that you can’t, you shall tell me.  I’m not going to ask you to marry me now, because in no way am I in a position to.  But if I come back and say to you, ’Margaret, I have turned into a man at last,’ you will know that I am telling the truth and am in a position to ask anything I please.  For I shall come back without a cent, but with a character, and that’s everything.  I shall not drink any more, and every night I shall pray to God to help me believe in Him.  But, Margaret, I may not come back at all.  If I don’t it will be for one of two reasons.  Either I shall fail in becoming worthy to kiss the dust under your blessed feet, or I shall be killed.  In the first case, I beg that you will pray for me; but in the second I pray that you will forget all that was bad in me and only remember what was good.  And so, darling—­” his voice broke, “because I am a little afraid of death and terribly afraid of myself—­”

She came obediently into his arms, and knew what it was to be kissed by the man she loved.

“Aladdin,” she said, “promise that nothing except—­”

“Death?” said Aladdin.

“—­that nothing, nothing except death—­shall keep you from coming back.”

“If I live,” said Aladdin, “I will come back.”

Everybody of education knows that Lucy Locket lost her pocket and that Betty Pringle found it without a penny “in it” (to rhyme with “found it “), but everybody does not know that the aforementioned Lucy Locket had a tune composed for her benefit that has thrilled the hearts of more sons of the young republic when stepping to battle than any other tune, past, present, or to come.  There is a martial vigor and a tear in “The Girl I Left Behind Me”; some feet cannot help falling into rhythm when they hear the “British Grenadiers”; North and South alike are possessed with a do-or-die madness when the wild notes of “Dixie” rush from the brass; and “John Brown’s Body” will cause the dumb to sing.  But it is the farcical little quickstep known by the ridiculous name of “Yankee Doodle” which the nations would do well to consider when straining the patience of the peace-loving and United States.

And so they marched down the street to the station, and the tall men walked on the right and the little men on the left, and the small boys trotted alongside, and the brand-new flags flung out, and bouquets were thrown, and there were cheers from the heart up all along the line.  But ever the saucy fifes sang, and the drums gaily beat

Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his Hat,
And called it macaroni.

At the station the emotions attendant on departure found but one voice.  The mother said to the son what the sweetheart said to the lover, and the sister to the brother.  Nor was this in any manner different from what the brother, lover, and son said to the sister, sweetheart, and mother.  It was the last sentence which bleeding hearts supply to lips at moments of farewell: