"Are your friends any relations of yours?"
"They are our cousins," Ralph said; "their father is our mother's brother."
For some time longer they chatted, and then their host said:
"It is half-past nine; and we are early people, here. You will have to be up by five, so I think that it is time you were off to bed. We shall scarcely be up when you start; but you will find a spirit lamp on the table, with coffee--which only requires heating--together with some bread and butter. You will have some miles to march before you breakfast.
"And now, you must all promise me that, if you come to this place again, you will come straight up here, and look upon it as your home. If you get ill or wounded--which I hope will not happen--you will, of course, go home; but something may occur not sufficiently important for you to leave the corps, but which could be set straight by a few days' nursing, and rest. In that case, you will come to us, will you not?"
The boys all gratefully promised to avail themselves of the invitation, in case of need; and then said good night and goodbye to their host, and went off to the room prepared for them. In the morning they were up in good time, dressed as quietly as they could--so as not to disturb their host--and went downstairs; lit the spirit lamp under a glass bowl full of coffee and milk and, in ten minutes, were on their way towards the town.
"We shall be lucky if we are often as comfortable as that," Percy said, looking back; and there was a general assent.
"There goes the bugle," Louis Duburg said; "we have a quarter of an hour, yet.
"What pretty girls those were!"
Louis was nearly seventeen and, at seventeen, a French lad considers himself a competent judge as to the appearance and manners of young ladies.