Mrs. Beguile took this as a great joke, and went about repeating it.
"Cadets have such pretty ways of saying things," she remarked. "Oh, Busy, here's Mr. Kindred. You used to see him at West Point, you know, and he's just as nice as ever."
Poor little Miss Bee! Did she need to be assured of that? But she bore herself gallantly, was just glad enough and not too glad to see him, gave one thought to her dress—so unfashionably high and plain—and never found out with what deep approval Cadet Kindred noticed its modest cut and simple trimmings.
"Cherry might ask her to be one of the bridesmaids," he thought. Poor little Mabel!
"Say, Kin," Rig confided to him as he went by with Miss Flirt's empty plate; "just two things not here, cast-iron pancakes, and 'Sammy.'"
"And the first captain," added Randolph, "yelling out 'Battalion, rise!' before we're half through."
"What do you think of this, for Commissary beef?" quoth Twinkle, devouring a sandwich in blissful ignorance of its component parts.
"Mr. Kindred! Mr. Kindred!" called out Miss Freak from a window seat behind him; "do please get me a glass of punch. I'm just dying with thirst."
Magnus stepped over to a side table and brought the young lady a glass of sparkling cold water. Miss Freak promptly handed it back.
"What did you bring that for?" she asked. "I didn't say water, man alive!"