, a boy's best friend is his mother!"

"_Billy!_" gasped Miss Erroll.

Selwyn, mortified, said severely: "That is a very dreadful song,
Billy--"

"But _you_ taught it to me--"

Eileen swung around on the piano stool, but Selwyn had seized Billy and
was promising to bolo him as soon as he wished.

And Eileen, surveying the scene from her perch, thought that Selwyn's
years seemed to depend entirely upon his occupation, for he looked very
boyish down there on his knees among the children; and she had not yet
forgotten the sunken pallor of his features in the Park--no, nor her own
question to him, still unanswered. For she had asked him who that woman
was who had been so direct in her smiling salute. And he had not yet
replied; probably never would; for she did not expect to ask him again.

Meanwhile the bolo-men were rushing the outposts to the outposts'
intense satisfaction.

"Bang-bang!" repeated Winthrop; "I hit you, Uncle Philip. You are dead,
you know!"

"Yes, but here comes another! Fire!" shouted Billy. "Save the flag!
Hurrah! Pound on the piano, Eileen, and pretend it's cannon."

Chord after chord reverberated through the big sunny room, punctuated by
all the cavalry music she had picked up from West Point and her friends
in the squadron.

"We can't get 'em up!
We can't get 'em up!
We can't get 'em up
In the morning!"

she sang, calmly watching the progress of the battle, until Selwyn
disengaged himself from the _melee_ and sank breathlessly into a chair.

"All over," he said, declining further combat. "Play the 'Star-spangled
Banner,' Miss Erroll."

"Boom!" crashed the chord for the sunset gun; then she played the
anthem; Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute.

The party was over.

Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery and down
the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange of badinage
again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, he retorting in
kind.

"Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy," she
concluded.

"Not as dreadful as the chorus," he remarked, wincing.

"You're exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look like one
now--so sheepish! I've seen Gerald attempt to avoid admonition in
exactly that fashion."

"How about a jolly brisk walk?" he inquired blandly; "unless you've
something on. I suppose you have."

"Yes, I have; a tea at the Fanes, a function at the Grays. .