As they talked, Kate resolved upon a plan of action. Fenie should become her sister-in-law if she, Kate, could manage it. Dear Harry should not be disappointed; Fenie was too young to marry a man like Lieutenant Jermyn. If Jermyn's attention could by any possibility be diverted from Fenie, she, Kate, would divert it; the result might be a heartache for herself, for she did most heartily admire such men. Still, she would endure such a pain, for her dear brother's sake, and if, after all, the affair didn't end in a heartache, why——
Just here she blushed, although Jermyn couldn't imagine why, for at that very instant he was explaining, at Kate's request, why the fort on the Rip-Raps, a couple of miles away, had not been completed, and he could not imagine what there was in the subject, or in his description, to bring a blush to any cheek, yet he said to himself that the blush was very becoming, and that Miss Trewman was quite an interesting young woman.
The chat continued until Trixy, who had once in ten minutes asked Jermyn the time, announced that she must go to wake her mother for breakfast. This reminded Kate that she had a brother to rouse, so she and the child went into the house.
Half an hour later, while Trif and Fenie and Trixy with Jermyn, whom they had invited to breakfast with them, were chatting over their morning meal the head waiter brought Harry and Kate to the same table. There was no help for it, although Harry looked as if he wished there were; a head waiter is autocrat of his domain. As to the others, Trif exclaimed:
"How delightful!" Fenie smiled pleasantly, although with some embarrassment, while Trixy shouted:
"Hooray!"
Kate bravely began operations at once. Fortune, in the guise of the waiter, had placed her beside Jermyn and Harry beside Fenie, so, Kate argued, if she were to monopolize the officer, Harry and Fenie would be obliged to talk to each other, and she was old enough to know that compulsory conversation has frequently broken the thickest of social ice.
The plan worked finely. Harry and Fenie were obliged to talk to each other, for no one else spoke to either, and as each was determined that the other shouldn't think anything unusual the matter, each quickly became voluble and merry. Bless the transparency of youthful hypocrisy. Neither of those two young people imagined that any one was noticing them, yet Kate's heart was dancing with joy as she saw them frankly exchange tender looks, and Trif's mind lost a great weight so rapidly that she felt several years younger within half an hour, and she was made still happier when, as the entire party strolled toward the fort to see "guard mount," Jermyn had occasion to whisper to her:
"Mr. Trewman is a remarkably fortunate young man—bless him."
Guard mounting in the army is quite as ceremonious a matter as parade, and Jermyn had to answer many questions which Kate put in rapid succession, while Fenie, who had seen guard mount several times, explained everything to Harry. Trixy seemed interested only in the movements of a dog, which persisted in following every movement of the post band. Her mother gazed at her in adoration. How entirely the dear child seemed absorbed in whatever interested her—how oblivious to everything else!