s limp over to the store and have a
cup of sack."

[Footnote A: Army _argot_ for commanding officer's wife.]

"B'lieve not, Blakie, I've--well, let up on it, so to speak."

"_What?_ Billy? Oh, come now, that's too--why, angels and ministers of
grace! Ray, is it love? delirious, delicious, delusive love, again?
Sweet William! Billy Doux! bless my throbbing heart! Odds boddikins!
man,--nay, think,--

''Tis best to freeze on to the old love
Till you're solid as wheat with the new.'

Don't throw off on Hebe when Shebe, maybe, only fooling thee. Peace, say
you? Nay, then, I mean no harm, sweet Will. Here's me hand on't. But
for me, no dalliance with Venus,--

'Her and her blind boy's scandalled company
I have forsworn.'

You have my blessing, Billy, but--

'Dost thou think because thou art virtuous
There shall be no more cakes and ale?'

Avaunt! I'll hie me to metheglin and Muldoon's." And off he went,
leaving Ray half vexed, half shaken with laughter.

It must have been one o'clock when, looking up the row as he sat basking
in the sunshine, he saw Gleason come out of Captain Truscott's quarters
and rapidly nearing him along the walk. He had been idly looking over a
newspaper and thinking intently over matters which he was beginning to
find vastly interesting; but something in Gleason's appearance changed
Mr. Ray's expression from that of the mingled contempt and indifference
with which he generally met him into one of more active interest. The
big and bulky lieutenant lurched unmistakably as he walked; his face was
flushed, his eyes red. He was muttering angrily to himself, and shot a
quick but far from intelligent glance at Ray as he passed.

"Now, what on earth could have prompted him to go to Truscott's looking
like that?" thought Ray. "I wonder if Mrs. Truscott saw him. She did not
go driving."

Presently there came a little knot of ladies down the row. They stopped
to speak to Ray, and he rose, answering with smiling welcome, and they
on the sidewalk and he, leaning against one of the pillars of the low
wooden portico, were in the midst of a lively chat when his own door
opened and there came from within his quarters Mrs. Truscott's soldier
servant, an old cavalryman whose infirmities had made him glad, long
since, to exchange the functions of a trooper for those of general
messenger, bootblack, and scullion on better pay and rations. He had
come in from the rear. He held out a n