hen she met him, but he raised his hat to her and said, "Good
afternoon, Miss Christine," in exactly the way he spoke to Tilly or
Bell Brown or Maggie Blair.

Marmaduke was sitting on the store veranda as she came up, and Trooper
was leaning against the door-post, very smart and handsome in his
uniform with his buttons and his spurs all aglitter. Bell Brown and
Maggie Blair were there as usual, and as Mrs. Holmes was not in the
store there was a great deal of hilarity.

Marmaduke, in his role of the village Lover, had been courting each of
the girls in turn and immediately transferred his affections the moment
Christina appeared.

"Hello, Christine!" he cried, "you don't get down here as often as
these other girls do; and here I've been spendin' days jist waitin' for
a sight of you. I've been jist that lonesome for you,--will you think
just the same of me if I go to the war?"

"I'm sure even the war couldn't make me change my opinion of you,
Duke," she answered with twinkling eyes. "Oh, Trooper!" she drew a
long breath of admiration, "and you're really and truly going to the
war!"

"You bet! Goin' in cavalry too, so I can make a swift get-away when
the Germans take after me!"

"I'm thinkin' of goin' to the war myself," said Marmaduke, who was
trying to cover up his real grief under an unusually frivolous
exterior. "I might as well go and get killed if none o' yous girls 'll
look at me. Honest now, Christine, what would you take and go west
with me next Spring? Now that Trooper is leavin' I'm not goin' to hang
round here any longer," he added with a touch of real seriousness.

"Well, I suppose I'd have to take my trunk, first of all," said
Christina, "and Grandpa and Mother--I couldn't leave them."

"Pshaw," giggled Tilly, "he was askin' me that very same thing before
yous girls came in, and I told him I'd take a gun so's I could shoot
myself when we got there. No letters for your folks to-day, Christine,
but your fellow's letter don't come till to-morrow anyhow," she added
with a giggle at her joke.

"Oh, say girls," whispered Bell Brown, "look who's comin'!"

Wallace Sutherland was swinging down the street and came up the veranda
steps in two graceful springs.

"Hello, Tilly! Hello, young ladies!" he cried in the free gay manner
that was the hope of the girls and the despair of his mother. He made
a profound bow to Marmaduke. "And how is His Grace the Dook to-day?
Hello, Trooper! Oh, say, don'