ats and evening-dress,--sought their respective
company-rooms, vanished therein, and, presently, reappeared in uniform.
It was as if behind those ten doors which lined the upper corridor there
were as many moulds, identical in form, where-into this perplexing
diversity of raw material was plunged on entering, to be drawn forth
again in a constant reduplication of militiamen.

As the hour for the review drew near, the proportion of these to the
throng with which they mingled, perceptibly increasing, seemed, little
by little, to leaven the whole lump. The dress-uniform of the Ninth was
everywhere, the black shakos and epaulettes, white pompons, cross-belts
and gloves, and multiplicity of brass buttons, lending the immense
assemblage a singular spirit and vivacity.

On the floor of the drill-room the people spread in all directions,
fan-like, from the main doorway, the multitudinous footfalls mounting
murmurously into the spaces of the lofty roof, where forty arc-lights
hung, dizzily suspended, pallid in the thin haze of dust swung upwards
from the hurrying feet of the thousands below.

"Precisely like an army of ants--and every one of them with an uncle or
two, and a round dozen of nephews and nieces!" said Mrs. Wynyard.

She and the Rathbawne girls were looking down upon the drill-floor
from the balcony of the Colonel's room. Broadcastle and the
Lieutenant-Governor were deep in conversation inside, having seized the
delay in the arrival of Governor Abbott as an opportunity for a few
words in private.

"How funny they are, scuttling along, all of them!" said Dorothy. "And
how immensely pleased the favored ones are, who have a soldier to show
them the way. I see a distinct difference in their walk from that of the
others, don't you, Natalie? They seem to be saying '_We_ were
_invited_--and by this splendiferous creature at our side!' See how they
strut! And look at the soldierless ones, how timidly they go--just as if
they had found their tickets in the street, or had crept in through the
basement windows. 'Please, kind Mr. Soldier-man, let us stay and see the
show. We'll be _awf'ly_ good!'"

"How preposterous you are, Dorothy!" answered Mrs. Wynyard. "Look! The
people are taking to the sides of the room already, and the companies
are forming. What astonishing method and precision there is to it all!
Do you suppose each man has a little circle marked on the floor, to show
just where he is to stand?"

"I haven't the