of the day."

"Well, you come, McLean. Miss Forrest wants to speak with you."

"Mac, there's no way out of it," growled Hatton between his set teeth;
"you've got to go."

"Be at the house in ten minutes, then. I'll join you there," said
McLean, glancing over his shoulders at his comrade as he started across
the springy turf to obey the summons. "What is it, Miss Forrest?" he
inquired. "Good-morning Mrs. Gordon--Mrs. Wells--everybody," he
continued, as, with forage-cap in hand, he made his obeisance to the
various ladies of the party.

"I want you to prove how we Bedlamites stand by one another by placing
yourself under my orders for a whole hour. You have no duty or
engagement, have you?"

McLean would have given--he knew not what--to be able to say he had;
but this _rencontre_ was something utterly unlooked for. He could
easily have pleaded letters, or company duty, but evasion was a trick
he could not brook. "I have none," he quietly answered.

"Then, for the honor of Bedlam, offer your services to these young
ladies and be their escort down to camp, where they are dying to go."

"Why, Fanny Forrest! how dare you?" gasped Kate Gordon, the elder.

"Indeed, Miss Forrest, I will not have a detailed escort," indignantly
protested Jeannie, the younger.

"What illimitable effrontery!" was the muttered comment of Mrs. Wells,
while poor Mrs. Gordon hardly knew what to say or do in her amaze and
annoyance. McLean himself had flushed crimson under the combined
influence of embarrassment and the recollection of the long talk he and
Hatton had had but two nights before. Mayhew, too, could hardly control
his surprise, but he declared afterward, when the matter came up for
comment down at camp, that he would "give a heap to have that man
McLean's self-possession," for with hardly an instant's delay the
latter's voice was heard above the voluble protests of the two young
ladies,--cordial, kindly, even entreating.

"I should like it, of all things. I want to run down and see the First
in the new field rig. Do let the girls go with me, Mrs. Gordon. Come,
Miss Kate; come, Miss Jeannie. I'll leave my sword at my quarters as we
go."

"Didn't I tell you, Mr. Mayhew?" said Miss Forrest, with heightened
color and a confident smile as she took his arm. "It is something to be
a queen, if it's only the queen of Bedlam."

And though, rather than create a scene, Mrs. Gordon and her daughters
joined the party, and Mrs. Wells and Mi