long to it.
When we marched back and had got to the main road again, the captain
disappeared; it was the lieutenant who got us to camp and dismissed us
there. I knew where the captain went when after this evening's mess I was
ordered to go to his tent. He was writing there, and turned round when I
_scratched_, which is a little way we have in the army, as there is no
way of knocking. I saluted.

"Oh, Mr. Godwin," said he, returning my salute. "Miss Wadsworth sends a
message. You're to come to see her this evening, after general
conference."

"I was planning to go to company conference, sir," said I.

I suppose she knew I would say that, for he was ready for me. "She made
it an order, Mr. Godwin," said he, very gravely.

"Very well, sir," said I, saluted again, and left him writing--or
pretending to. I suppose she's got him, like the rest of them.

When I called on Vera we were very proper, and very old-friendly, and
radically different in our ideas, as it seems destined for us to be. I
told her how much I liked the training, and she said how much she
disapproved of it, and so we passed the time. Once she insisted on
telling me all about what her sister Frances is doing now. Then officers
began to come in, and to chat with the old colonel in the next room, and
glance through the door at us, as if saying, "When is that dam rookie
going to go?" So I left. It was nearly time, anyway, for me to be tucked
up in bed like a good little boy, and leave the field to my betters.

DICK.

PRIVATE GODWIN'S DAILY LETTER

Saturday evening, Sept. 16.
At the company tent.

DEAR MOTHER:--

We have just come back from general conference, a nightly occurrence
except in bad weather. Tonight, because it was cold, the men went
grumbling and tardy, having put on sweaters under their blouses, and the
wise ones, on account of the recent rains, bringing something to sit on.
In default of anything better a legging will do, slipped off when we are
on the ground. Our speaker tonight told us of army law, too technical for
me to make it interesting to you. Some speakers have hard work in making
their subjects interesting to us, not that these are dull, but that the
speakers are. Said Corder to me after one such, "When I was a Sunday
School superintendent I let no one speak to the s