Editha Balcom is a young woman—sometimes called a “girl” (4)—from a town in northern New York. She encourages her fiancé, George Gearson, to enlist for the Spanish-American War. Her desire for him to fight is borne not of true patriotism but of a fixation on “the highest ideal” (2). Editha desires that the man who gets to marry her truly earn her love by being a “hero” and by doing “something to win her” (1). In convincing George to enlist, Editha relies on phrasing used in propaganda in newspapers, telling him “[t]here is nothing now but our country” (2) and that “God meant it to be war” (3). In doing so, she is careful to give the impression that she is letting him come to these conclusions himself. When George wavers, Editha packs up his letters and gifts to her, including her engagement ring, and writes him a letter in which she explains that she must return these items until he decides to enlist, for “[t]here is no honor above America with me” (4).

Editha tends to use romantic platitudes, behaving in a way she imagines is ideal. When she parts with him at the train station, she tells him she is his “for time and eternity—time and eternity,” a dramatic statement that “satisfied her famine for phrases” (7).