Though there's always enough to bear,
There is always something to do;
We have never to seek for care,
When we have the world to get through.
—Charles Swain.
But whoever succeeded in driving the moth away from the candle? Magnus was fain to content himself with remembering that on most singed human moths, wings grow anew very fast.
Miss Curry welcomed Mr. Trent's advances with a gracious smile, but she by no means let go her hold of Rig; and Rig had perfectly lost his head. The girl might flout him five times a day, and these cool applications did but heighten the fever.
From the middle of April on, there was pretty steady "cadet weather." Whatever the dawn may threaten, it always clears off in time for drill, except on Saturdays, when the order is reversed, and the rain sets in with double force just as the hours of freedom begin.
Rain did not hinder some men. Magnus rather enjoyed wrapping himself in his long grey coat and stalking off into the gloom and the fog. The hills were so lovely in their misty caps, the air so laden with spring sweets: spice bush and trillium, black birch and dogwood and azalia, and all the leaf buds just bursting their varnished sheath. How fragrant the pines were! and the cedars and hemlocks: how dainty the small clouds of wayfaring birds just come to spend the night. And in another month his birds of passage would be here, and the air full of their voices. Sometimes when Magnus thought of it, the excitement half made him wild; and he would set off for a sharp run up the hill, or a one-sided leap-frog among the rocks. Then he would throw himself down on the moss and hold his head and think. Or he took a squirrel track to the top of a tall tree and shouted (not too loud) and waved his cap to the passing trains, and saluted the old flag.
The Point filled up fast with candidates; and as Magnus looked at them, he did not much wonder at the glances which had once been cast on him. He found a slight touch of contempt the easiest thing in the world to creep in. A host of these sombre drones seeking something to do, a swarm of gay butterflies demanding only honey; what a motley crowd it made.
Even Magnus was drawn in by the honey-seekers; and took Miss Freak a walk after trailing arbutus, because she asked him so sweetly; and indeed himself asked some other girls to go here or there. And, of course, being a cadet, he said pretty things and made himself agreeable, though never beyond certain limits (N. B. I do not mean cadet limits, this time). As Miss Freak said, with her charming frankness:
"He never gives you anything to think of at night, when you get your back hair down."
But in spite of that small drawback, Mr. Kindred had his full share of what Mr. Clinker facetiously termed "drilling the Light Battery."
Some very pleasant and sensible girls came to the Point that spring; and in the great longing for sweeter tones than those of the average cadet, Magnus was ready enough to make acquaintance and take walks. And the girl generally declared: "It has been most delightful." Only when one gauzy creature looked up at him and said: