"Best let him alone, Puss," said Miss Saucy, "or you'll cut your fingers. He's been at the seaside, eating razors."
"Using 'em, too," said the Kitten, gazing at Magnus. "Didn't it go to your heart to cut off your moustache?"
"Everything goes to my heart. That is my weak point."
"What was the last arrival?" demanded Miss Saucy.
"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of the colour line.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West Point season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her heart as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall, when that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go to spend the day!"
"The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile.
"Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent, "but they can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes along and turns them out."
"And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said Miss Saucy. "Do you know, I just made Clinch look at me the other night as he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest thing to break camp before cold weather. There it goes!—our camp!"
But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that nobody heard, and glances that no one saw.