singly. "Don't you wish you
knew?"

Virginia shrugged her shoulders, as if she had not the slightest
interest in the matter, and held out two packages.

"Here are the valentines you sent for. You just ought to see the pile
that Aunt Allison bought. We've the best secret about to-morrow that
ever was."

"So have we," began Keith, but Malcolm clapped a sooty hand over his
mouth and pulled him toward the door of their room. "Come on," he said.
"We've barely time to dress for dinner. Don't you know enough to keep
still, you little magpie?" he exclaimed, as the door banged behind them.
"The only way to keep a secret is not to act like you have one!"

Virginia walked slowly back to her room and paused in the doorway,
wondering what she could do to amuse herself until dinner-time. It was a
queer room for a girl, decorated with flags and Indian trophies and
everything that could remind her of the military life she loved, at the
far-away army post. There were photographs framed in brass buttons on
her dressing-table, and pictures of uniformed officers all over the
walls. A canteen and an army cap with a bullet-hole through the crown,
hung over her desk, and a battered bugle, that had sounded many a
triumphant charge, swung from the corner of her mirror.

Each souvenir had a history, and had been given her at parting by some
special friend. Every one at the fort had made a pet of Captain Dudley's
daughter,--the harum-scarum little Ginger,--who would rather dash across
the prairies on her pony, like a wild Comanche Indian, than play with
the finest doll ever imported from Paris.

There was a suit in her wardrobe, short skirt, jacket, leggins, and
moccasins, all made and beaded by the squaws. It was the gift of the
colonel's wife. Mrs. Dudley had hesitated some time before putting it in
one of the trunks that was to go back to Kentucky.

"You look so much like an Indian now," she said to Virginia. "Your face
is so sunburned that I am afraid your grandmother will be scandalised. I
don't know what she would say if she knew that I ever allowed you to run
so wild. If I had known that you were going back to civilisation I
certainly should not have kept your hair cut short, and you should have
worn sunbonnets all summer."

To Mrs. Dudley's great surprise, her little daughter threw herself into
her arms, sobbing, "Oh, mamma! I don't want to go back to Kentucky! Take
me to Cuba with you! Please do, or else let me stay here at the