afford
time to think of such grewsome matter. All the same, they note that Mr.
Lee comes no more to the hotel, and a rumor is in circulation that he
has begged to be relieved from duty at the Point and ordered to join his
troop now in the field against hostile Indians.

Nannie McKay is looking like a pathetic shadow of her former self as she
comes down-stairs to fulfil an engagement with a cadet admirer. She
neglects no duty of the kind towards Willy's friends and hers, but she
is drooping and listless. Uncle Jack is worried about her; so, too, is
mamma, though the latter is so wrapped up in the graduation of her boy
that she has little time to think of pallid cheeks and mournful eyes. It
is all arranged that they are to sail for Europe the 1st of July, and
the sea air, the voyage across, the new sights and associations on the
other side, will "bring her round again," says that observant
"avuncular" hopefully. He is compelled to be at his office in the city
much of the time, but comes up this day as a matter of course, and has a
brief chat with his graceless nephew at the guard-house. Billy's utter
lack of spirits sets Uncle Jack to thinking. The boy says he can "tell
him nothing just now," and Uncle Jack feels well assured that he has a
good deal to tell. He goes in search of Lieutenant Lee, for whom he has
conceived a great fancy, but the big lieutenant has gone to the city on
business. In the crowded hall at the hotel he meets Miriam Stanley, and
her face gives him another pound of trouble to carry.

"You are going to the ball, though?" he hears a lady say to her, and
Miriam shakes her head.

Ball, indeed!--or last parade, either! She knows she cannot bear to see
the class march to the front, and her brother not there. She cannot bear
the thought of even looking on at the ball, if Philip is to be debarred
from attending. Her thoughts have been very bitter for a few days past.
Her father's intense but silent distress and regret; Philip's certain
detention after the graduation of his class; his probable court-martial
and loss of rank; the knowledge that he had incurred it all to save
McKay (and everybody by this time felt that it _must_ be Billy McKay,
though no one could prove it), all have conspired to make her very
unhappy and very unjust to Mr. Lee. Philip has told her that Mr. Lee had
no alternative in reporting to the commandant his discovery "down the
road," but she had believed herself of sufficient value in