nsulting us?" cried Mollie, in mock indignation. "I'll
have you know, Miss Nelson, that I, for one, am not intoxicated and, what
is more, never expect to be."

"Goodness! that is a relief," sighed Grace, who had been hanging
breathlessly on her words. "I thought you were going to say 'I am not
drunk, but soon shall be,' or words to that effect--"

"But will you listen?" cried Betty despairingly. "I've got about as much
chance of saying anything sensible--"

"As the man in the moon," finished Grace innocently, then, meeting Betty's
outraged eye, added hastily: "Oh, wasn't that what you were going to say?"

"No, it wasn't," Betty was beginning, when Mollie, for the first time in
her life played the part of peacemaker.

"Go ahead, honey," she interrupted soothingly. "We're all ears."

"Speak for yourself," Grace murmured.

But this time Betty would not yield, and insisted upon being heard.

"Please listen a minute, girls," she begged. "You know we've got a
reputation, deserved or not, of being respectable--"

"Oh, what a mistake," interpolated Mollie.

"I said it might be a mistake," Betty continued patiently, although her
eyes twinkled. "Anyway, we've got to live up to it--Goodness! just look
at the boys. I guess the whole camp must be in the drill."

"Yes, I guess Sergeant Mullins was right when he said it was to be an
exhibition drill," agreed Mollie, all fun temporarily swallowed up in a
very real admiration of the spectacle before them.

"It's no wonder that Sergeant Mullins is considered a very important
personage around here," added Amy.

"Oh, look!" cried Grace, as they sat down upon a convenient bench.
"They've started. Oh, girls, I'm glad I came!"

Mutely the girls echoed the sentiment, and for the next hour they sat
motionless, eyes and attention glued upon the magnificent spectacle of a
thousand men, running, advancing, retreating, attacking, all in obedience
to one great plan.

They forgot it was only a sham attack, an imitation battle, an exhibition
drill. For the moment a curtain had been lifted and they were permitted to
see something of the glory, the passion, the horror of democracy's
struggle against the armed autocracy of the world.

When it was over they sighed and came back to the present almost with a
shock; so greatly had they been engrossed in the scene.

"Well, Sergeant Mullins may not be much of a talker," were Mollie's first
words as they rose to go back, "but he certainly kno