emonial usage upon herself, she stood a moment with
that sense of constriction in the throat which is so common a signal of
emotion. The music ceased, and as they moved on Penhallow asked, "What
about Gresham, your friend?"

"Oh, you know, uncle, when a cadet resigns for any cause which involves
no dishonour, we have a little ceremony. I want you to see it. No college
has that kind of thing. Don't be late. I will join you in time."

The captain and Leila attracted much attention from the cadets at dinner
in the Mess Hall. "Now, dear, look!" said Penhallow. At the end of the
long table a cadet rose--the captain of the corps in charge of the
battalion. There was absolute silence. The young officer spoke:

"You all know that to our regret one of us leaves to-day. Mr. Gresham,
you have the privilege of calling the battalion to attention."

A slightly built young fellow in citizen's dress rose at his side. For a
moment he could not fully command his voice; then his tones rang clear:
"Most unwillingly I take my farewell. I am given the privilege of those
who depart with honour. Battalion! Attention! God bless you! Good-bye!"

The class filed out, and lifting the departing man on their shoulders
bore him down to the old south dock and bade him farewell.

Penhallow looked after them. "There goes the first, Leila. There will be
more--many more--to follow, unless things greatly change--and they will
not. I hoped to take John home with us, but he will come in a week. I
must leave to-morrow morning. John is in the dumps just now, but
Beauregard has only pleasant things to say of him. I wish he were as
agreeable about the polities of his own State."

"Are they so bad?"

"Don't ask me, Leila."

The capital of available energy in the young may be so exhausted by
mental labour, when accompanied by anxiety, that the whole body for a
time feels the effect. Muscular action becomes overconscious, and intense
use of the mind seems to rob the motor centres of easy capacity to use
the muscles. John Penhallow walked slowly up the rough road to where the
ruined bastions of Port Putnam rose high above the Hudson. He was aware
of being tired as he had not been for years. The hot close air and the
long hours of concentration of mind left him discouraged as well as
exhausted. He was still in the toils of the might-have-been, of that
wasting process--an examination, and turning over in his mind logistics,
logarithms, trajectories, equations