"Probably they won't," observed Mark, smiling again.
"I don't care if they do," vowed Grace, pouting prettily. "They'll get over it. And they're awfully stupid, anyway. I hope you're not stupid."
With which Mark quite naturally agreed.
"I don't think the cadets like you much," she went on, laughing. "I had such fun teasing them by talking about your heroism. They didn't like it a bit, and they'd try all sorts of ways to change the subject, but I wouldn't let them. They say you are terribly B. J. Are you?"
"I suppose they think so," answered Mark. "I'm nothing like as B. J. as I shall be before I get through."
"That's right!" vowed the girl, shaking her head. "I like B. J. plebes. I think I should be B. J. if I were a plebe. I don't like these mild, obedient fellows, and I think the plebes stand entirely too much."
"I wish you were one to help me," laughed Mark, noticing the contrast between the girl's frail figure and her energetic look.
"I'm stronger than you think," said she. "I could do a lot." And then suddenly she broke into one of her merry, animated laughs, during which Mark thought her more charming than ever. "If I can't fight," she said, "you must let me be a Daughter of the Revolution. You must let me make clothes and bake bread the way the colonists' daughters did. It's just appropriate for to-day, too."
"I don't want any bread——" began Mark, looking at her thoughtfully.
"Perhaps not," she put in, with a peal of laughter. "If you saw the bread I make, you'd be still more emphatic. It's like the fruit of the tree of knowledge—'Whoso eateth thereof shall surely die.'"