"'Brud wouldn't let her dike him out in the same way. She wanted him to go as Cupid. He consented to let her call him Cupid and he carried a bow and arrow, and wore some of the trimmings, but he wore them in his own way. The white turkey-wings, which she tried to attach to his shoulderblades, he wore bound to his brow like an Indian chieftain's war-bonnet. Long-suffering Uncle August frisked about in a most remarkable costume. I think it must have been made of the top section of Brud's pajamas, with the sleeves pulled up over his front paws, and buttoned in the back. It was sprinkled with big hearts, some blue and some yellow.
"'But, funny as they looked, Meliss was the comic Valentine of the occasion. The front of her was covered with an old lace window curtain. Across her bosom, carefully fastened with a gilt paper arrow, was the lithographed picture of a big red heart, as fat and red and shiny as a ripe tomato. She carried the lunch basket.
"'I must confess it staggered me a trifle when the procession came out to meet me, but they were so pleased with themselves I hadn't the heart to suggest a single change. I led on, hoping that we wouldn't meet anyone. Well, we hadn't gone a hundred paces till we heard hoof-beats, and a solitary horseman came riding along behind us. Brud looked back and then piped up in his shrill little voice:
"'"Oh, look, Miss Mayry! Look at the soldier man coming!"
"'Naturally, I glanced back, and my blood fairly ran cold, for there, riding along with a broad grin on his face at sight of our ridiculous turnout, was Lieutenant Boglin! I was so amazed at seeing him that I just stood still in the road and stared, feeling my face get redder and redder. Somehow I had no power to move. He didn't recognize me till he was opposite us, but the instant he did, he was off his horse and coming up to shake hands, and I was trying to account for our appearance. It seems he had been with the troops up at Leon Springs for target practice, and was taking a day off while they were breaking camp. He had been commissioned to look at a polo pony somebody had for sale in Bauer, and thought while he was about it he would call and see the Ware family, after he had had dinner at the hotel. He was on his way there.
"'Well, there I was! I couldn't ask him to go on such a babyfied lark as our Valentine picnic. I couldn't leave the children and take him over home, because my time is Mrs. Mallory's. Even if she had excused me, the children would have raised an unstoppable howl, and probably would have followed us. They are making grand strides in the courtesy business, but they are still far from being models of propriety.
"'When I had explained to the best of my ability, I told him I would be through at five, and asked him to wait and take supper with us. I could see that he was inwardly convulsed, and I do believe it was because we all looked so ridiculous and he wanted to see the show a second time that he accepted my invitation with alacrity. As soon as he started on to the Williams House, I stopped under a tree and wrote a scrawl to mamma on the margin of the newspaper that was spread on top of the lunch-basket. Then I gave Meliss a dime to run over home with it, so that the family needn't be taken by surprise if Bogey happened to get there before I did.
"'But it seems that he forgot the directions I gave him for finding the house, and about ten minutes to five, as the children and Meliss were finishing the lunch which was spread out on the Council Rock, he came climbing up the side of the hill. The children had been angelic before his arrival and they were good after he came, except—I can't explain it—there was something almost impish in the way they sat and watched us, listening to everything we said, as if they were committing it to memory to repeat afterward. Even Uncle August, in his heart-covered pajamas, squatted solemnly on the rock beside them and seemed to be stowing away something to remember.