nvitation to remain, except from Anita's
eyes, shy and long-lashed.

When the Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue and Anita were sitting at the
softly-shaded round table in the dining-room, Anita's chair was close
to her father's--the two were never far apart when they could be close
together. Mrs. Fortescue wore around her white throat a locket with a
miniature in it of her boy soldier. He was to her what Anita was to
the Colonel, but being a stout-hearted woman she had sent her son away
to be a soldier and had worn a smile at parting. There was a strain of
the Spartan mother in this smiling daughter, wife, and mother of
soldiers.

"Did you have a pleasant visit from Mr. Broussard?" asked Colonel
Fortescue.

"Very pleasant, daddy dear. He knows so much about birds."

"I think," replied the Colonel, darkly, "Mr. Broussard's knowledge
comes chiefly from the study of fighting chickens."

"I hear he has cockfights on Sunday, in the cellar of his quarters,"
said Mrs. Fortescue, willing to give Broussard a slashing cut under the
fifth rib.

"Cocking mains, my dear," corrected the Colonel, and then kept on,
earnestly, to Anita.

"Yon can scarcely imagine the horrors of a cockpit. The poor
gamecocks, with cruel spurs upon their feet, tearing each other to
pieces, and blood and feathers all over the place."

"You seem wonderfully familiar with cockpits," remarked Mrs. Fortescue.
"It seems to me, when we went to our first post after we were married,
that you were sometimes missing on Sunday morning, and used to tell me
afterward about the grand time you had, and the superior fighting
qualities of the Savoys over the Bantams."

The Colonel scowled.

"I don't recall the circumstances, Elizabeth," he said.

"But I do, John," tartly responded Mrs. Fortescue.

Anita knew that when it was Jack and Betty the skies were serene, and
when it became John and Elizabeth there were clouds upon the horizon.

At this point Kettle, who was serving dinner, felt that his duty as
Broussard's ally was to speak.

"Miss Betty," said he with solemn emphasis, "Mr. Broussard doan' keep
them chickens in his cellar fur to fight; he keeps 'em to lay aigs fur
his breakfus'."

"That's queer," said the Colonel, "all of Mr. Broussard's chickens are
cock chickens."

This would have abashed a less ardent partisan, but it only stimulated
Kettle.

"Come to think of it, Miss Betty," Kettle continued stoutly, "them
chickens is cock chickens, but M