"Aunt Julia, what's the use of having anything to give, if folks won't take it when you give it?" she demanded, irritably.
"Not having followed your thoughts for the last five minutes, my dear, I fear I'm unable to give you a very helpful answer," smiled Mrs. Kennedy, serenely. And Genevieve, remembering Elsie's shamed, red face, decided suddenly that Elsie's secret was not hers to tell.
Half an hour later Mr. Hartley marshaled his party for the start.
"You're a brave sight," he declared, smiling into the bright faces about him. "You're a mighty brave sight; and I'll leave it to anybody if even the boys in line to-day will make a finer show!"
The Happy Hexagons laughed and blushed and courtesied prettily; and only Genevieve knew that the smile on Elsie's face was a little forced—Elsie was wearing the green chambray.
There was an awed "Oh-h!" of wonder and admiration when Mr. Hartley's party came in sight of the great parade grounds at Fort Sam Houston. There was a still deeper, longer, louder "Oh-h-h!" when, sitting at one end of the grounds, the girls heard the first stirring notes of the band.
To the Hexagon Club it was a most wonderful sight—those long lines of men moving with such perfect precision. Fresh from the Alamo as the girls were, with the story of that dreadful slaughter in their ears—to them it almost seemed that there before them marched the brave men who years ago had given up their lives so heroically in the little chapel.
It was Tilly who broke the silence.
"Oh, I do just love soldiers," she cried, with a hurried glance sideways to make sure that Mr. Hartley in the next carriage could not hear her. "Don't you, Genevieve?" But Genevieve was too absorbed to answer.
A little later the band played "The Star-spangled Banner," and there sounded the signal gun for the lowering of the colors. In the glorious excitement of all this, even Tilly herself forgot to talk.