West Point Colors

"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help even the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately of the dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the sal...

Magnus had been watching her eagerly, but as she looked up, his eyes turned away, and Cherry again studied him. What a boy he was still, after all: the young head with its short...

"It does not matter why, you know, so long as I am going," said wise Cherry, and so she put on her sun-bonnet, and went back with steady steps toward her own gate, so soon as te...

The sisters looked on, laughing and delighted. For just so those two had teased and scolded and played together, since they were big enough to play, and to see it all go on agai...

"If only she could hear it!" he used to think; if only the "All's well!" could cross those weary miles that kept her away. But now, somehow, he did not wish it. Yes, it was all...

"'And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his...

"She comes from _home_," he said. "Excuse me, I am late"; and with another touch of his cap Magnus sprang away up the path about as fast as a man could go and not run.

"That is not the way at all," said Magnus (approving it highly, all the same). "You must put your head on the other side now and say: 'Really, Mr. Kindred--he! he!--I'm awfully...

And I suppose so it was; the task was really ended when the idea came in. A strong protector for his darling when his own care should fail, had been the longing in Mr. Erskine's...

And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh from Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows. The company drills had lookers-on; the walks...

And he found the Sunday rest a great thing. Broken in upon, indeed, by a guard-mounting and parade; by police calls, inspection, and now and then guard duty; but between whiles...

"Waffles!" cried Rose in the distance, and the talk ended. Only as the mother went out with her boy's arm round her waist, she looked up at him with her true eyes.

"Why, it must be a flag that flies in all weathers!" cried Cherry. "So strong that the wind cannot tear it, and so deep-coloured that the rain cannot wash it out."

In some things he had stood firm. The first brandy snap he got hold of at Mrs. Beguile's picnic went over the cliffs at Fort Putnam, to the great excitement of a nest of young s...

"Oh, the girls!" said the cadet. "Yes, there's a good many girls here; and what some of 'em don't know, and don't do, wouldn't fill a collar-box. Even Crinkem's head could hold...

But work did come hard! The reveille gun was such an impertinence after the lazy summer mornings at home. Every officer figured as an enemy, every drill was an unmitigated bore....

Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast into the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that did their work so quietly and well. Then he...

"Why don't you go to the hops, if you want a change?" said Catty, leaning her elbows on her aunt's lap, and gazing up at the new acquaintance. Magnus laughed in spite of himself.

"Now fold your hands, and spell zero ten times backwards," said Magnus, "and then take your Davies, and go to work. Unless you want to fess solid for the rest of your life."

It is not a particularly interesting bit of road at first, as you leave the great city, going north. The tunnel, the gleams and glooms in the long passage under ever-arching str...

"Yes you do. Not all just alike, perhaps; one man puts in more brains than another, and so maybe gets larger returns; but the slower fellow maxes it _for him_; the dividends are...

"Well, he isn't here," said Miss Freak. "Come, aunty!" The girls were choking themselves with their pocket-handkerchiefs; the cadets, better used to endurance, kept their gravit...

A gold fringe on the purpling hem Of hills the river runs, As down its long green valley falls The last of summer suns. Along its tawny gravel bed Broad-flowing, swift, and stil...

So rang out the joyful tidings in the Mess Hall one snowy winter morning, making the old place on a sudden all summer with warm exultation. It was almost beyond belief; and the...

And it became plain to lynx-eyed Mrs. Congressman, that Magnus soon ceased to be the only grey figure on the horizon. His walks with other girls were borne meekly; and the days...

"You must eat, girls," she said. "Build yourselves up for what's before you. I suppose this is the last quiet minute we shall have to ourselves till we go away."

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"No, nothing," she assured him with a smile. But something in the smile and its quiet patience, made him dart over to the table and fetch a handful of the gayest bonbons and mot...