ou have oceans of
room here, haven't you?"

Marjorie nodded. "Yes; when first we came here I felt lost. It was
actually lonesome. It took me a whole week to grow accustomed to looking
out without seeing rows of brick houses across the street and on each
side of me. Don't you remember, I wrote you all about it? You see, I
didn't enter high school until we'd been here almost two weeks, and in
all that time I never met a single girl. I felt like a shipwrecked
sailor on a great, big, lonely, old island. Shall we go upstairs now?
I'm so anxious to have you see my 'house.' It's a house within a house,
you know. Mother had it all done up in pink and white for me, and I
spent hours in it. Your house is blue. I made general and captain let
me have one of the spare bedrooms done in blue, so that when you came to
visit me you'd feel at home. And now it's going to be your very own for
a whole year! It's too good to be true."

Releasing Mary's hand, Marjorie led the way up the stairs to the second
floor and down the short hall to her "house." Mary cried out in
admiration at her friend's dainty room. She walked about, exclaiming
over its perfect details after the manner of girls, then three minutes
later the two somehow found themselves seated side by side on Marjorie's
pretty white bed, their arms about each other's waists, and fairly
launched into one of the good, old-time confabs they were wont to
indulge in when the top step of the Deans' veranda in B---- had been
their favorite trysting place.

Half an hour later Mrs. Dean entered the room to find them still talking
at an alarming rate, the rest of their world apparently forgotten.

"I might have known it," she smiled. "Why, you haven't even taken off
your hats, and dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Marjorie, you are a
most neglectful hostess."

"Oh, we don't mind having dinner with our hats on," returned Marjorie
cheerfully. Then, rising, she took off her broad-brimmed Panama, and
began gently pulling the pins from Mary's hat. "Make it fifteen minutes,
instead of ten, Captain, and we'll be as spick and span as you please."

"Discipline seems to be very lax in these barracks," commented Mrs.
Dean. "I am afraid I ought to call upon General to help me enforce my
orders. Under the circumstances I'll be lenient, though, and stretch the
time to fifteen minutes. There, I hear General downstairs now!"

She disappeared from the doorway and immediately a great scurrying about