e said, pitifully; "I am a girl, and
Sandy is to be the soldier though he was too lazy to come down the glen
to-day to see them away, and I must stay at home and work at samplers
and seams and bake bannocks."

With wanton petulant fingers she pulled the haws from the hedge beside
her, and took a strand of her hair between her teeth and bit it in her
reverie of wilfulness.

"Perhaps," said Gilian, coming closer, "it is better to be at home and
soldiering in your mind instead of marching and fighting." It was a
thought that came to him in a flash and must find words, but somehow he
felt ashamed when he had uttered them.

"I do not understand you a bit," said Nan, with a puzzled look in her
face. "Oh, you mean to pretend to yourself," she added immediately.
"That might be good enough for a girl, but surely it would not be good
enough for you. You are to be a soldier, my father says, and he laughs
as if it were something droll."

"It is not droll at all," said Gilian stammering, very much put out.
"There are three old soldiers in our house and----"

"One of them Captain Mars, Captain Mars, Who never saw scars!" said the
girl mischievously, familiar with the town's song. "I hope you do not
think of being a soldier like Mars. Perhaps that is what my father
laughs at when he says the Paymaster is to make you a soldier."

"Oh, that!" said Gilian, a little relieved. "I thought you were thinking
I would not be man enough for a soldier."

Nan opened the gate and came out to measure herself beside him. "You're
a little bigger than I am," said she, somewhat regretfully. "Perhaps you
will be big enough for a soldier. But what about that when you think you
would sooner stay at home and pretend, than go with the army? Did you
see the soldier who kissed his hand to me? The liberty!" And she laughed
with odd gaiety as if her mood resented the soldier's freedom.

"He was very thin and little," said Gilian, enviously.

"I thought he was quite big enough," said Nan promptly, "and he was so
good-looking!"

"Was he?" asked Gilian gloomily. "Well, he was not like the Cornal or
the General. They were real soldiers and have seen tremendous wars."

"I daresay," said Nan, "but no more than my father. I cannot but wonder
at you; with the chance to be a soldier like my father or--or the
General, being willing to sit at home pretending or play-acting it in
school or----"

"I did not say I would prefer it," said the boy; "I only said it