some big
yellow chrysanthemums in a tall cut-glass vase that Dr. Carey had left to
be sent down to her when Bo Peep should come to the Aydelots to make his
home.

"See, Bo Peep, aren't they pretty? Set them in the middle of the table
there, carefully. The first bouquet we ever had on our table was a few
little sunflowers in an old peach can wrapped round with a newspaper. You
didn't answer my question. Why did Horace go so far away?"

The servant took the vase carefully and placed it as commanded. Then he
turned to Virginia with a face full of intense feeling.

"Miss Virgie, I done carry messages for him all my days." The pathos of
the soft voice was touching. "I wasn't to give this las' one to you less'n
he neveh come back. An Mis' Virgie, Doctoh Carey won't neveh come back no
mo'. But I kaint tell you yet jus' why he done taken hisself to the
Fillippians, not yet."

"Why do you think he will never come back? You think Thaine will come home
again, don't you?" Virginia queried.

"Oh, yas'm! yas'm! Misteh Thaine, he'll come back all right. But hit's
done fo'casted in my bones that Doctoh Horace won't neveh come. An' when
he don't, I'll tell you why he leff'n Grass Riveh, Kansas, for the
Fillippians."

CHAPTER XIX

THE "FIGHTING TWENTIETH"

Malolos and Bocaue's trenches know the Kansas yell;
San Fernando and San Tomas the Kansas story swell;
At Guiguinto's fiercest battle yon flag in honor flew;
What roaring rifles kept it, all Luna's army knew;
And high it swung o'er Caloocan, Bagbag and Marilao--
"Those raggedy Pops from Kansas" 'fore God they're heroes now.
--Lieutenant-Colonel E. C. Little.

Night had fallen on the city of Manila. Before it lay the bay whose waters
lapped softly against pier and shipping. Behind it in the great arc of a
circle stretched the American line of military outposts, guarded by
sentinels. Beyond that line, north, east, and south, there radiated a
tangle of roads and trails through little villages of nipa huts, past rice
fields and jungles, marshes and rivers, into the very heart of Luzon.
Manila was under American military government, but Luzon was in
insurrection against all government, and a network of rebellious lines of
enemies fretted every jungle, hid in every village, intrenched itself in
every rice field, and banked its earthworks beyond every river. While
Emilio Aguinaldo, the shrewd leader of an ignor