"You are one funny, old-fashioned little kid, do you know that? Some times I feel as though I were about twenty years your senior, and then when I catch that size-me-up, read-me-through, look in your eyes, I make up my mind I'm the infant—not you. Where did you and Peggy catch and bottle up all your worldly wisdom?"
"Didn't know I had so much," laughed Polly, "but Peggy was born with hers, I reckon. If I have any it has been bumped into my head partly by mother, partly by Aunt Janet, and the job finished by the boys Juno has been referring to. It doesn't do to try any nonsense with that bunch; they see through you and call your bluff as quick as a flash. We were pretty good chums and I miss them more than I could ever miss a lot of girls, I believe. Certainly, more than I missed the Montgentian girls when I left them."
"Nothing like being entirely frank, I'm sure," was Juno's superior remark:
"That's another thing the boys taught us," replied Polly imperturbably. Just then the bell rang for "rooms."
"There's Tattoo!" cried Polly. "If I get settled down at Taps tonight I'll be doing wonders. Miss Allen has bandaged up my arm as though Tzaritza had bitten half of it off. Come on, 'Ritza. Peggy, you'll have to get me out of my dudds tonight. Good-night, girls. Sorry we didn't get our fudge made. Maybe if I'd let Helen alone you would have had it," and with a merry laugh Polly ran from the room, all animosity forgotten.
"What did she mean by 'Tattoo' and 'Taps,'" asked Natalie of Peggy.
"The warning call sounded on the bugle for the midshipmen to go to their rooms, and the lights out call which follows. Have you never heard them? They are so pretty. Polly and I love them so, and you can't think how we miss them here. Polly always sounded them on her bugle at home. You've no idea how sweetly she can do it," answered Peggy as she walked toward her room beside Natalie.
"Oh, I wish I could hear them. I wonder if mother knows anything about them," cried Natalie enthusiastically. "Do you know, I think you and Polly are perfectly wonderful, you have so many original ideas. I am just crazy to know what mother wanted of you tonight. I'm going to ask her. Do you think she will tell me?"
"Why not? The only reason I did not tell was because I felt I had no right to. If Mrs. Vincent wants the others to know she will tell them, but you are different. I reckon mothers can't keep anything from their own daughters. At least Polly and her mother seem to share everything and I know Mrs. Harold is just like a mother to me."
The girls separated and Peggy and Polly were soon behind closed doors discussing Mrs. Vincent's private interview with the former.