ay of helping her to say what had brought her thither--besides a
livery carriage; but Cranston had taken a seat and was waiting, the
telegram crushed in his hand. At last she spoke again.

"You--went to West Point, didn't you?"

"I? Yes."

"Well, then, you could tell me, couldn't you, how to get my boy there?"

"You mean by-and-by when he is old enough?"

"No. I mean now,--at once,--this week in fact."

"W--ell. That is hardly possible, Mrs. Barnard. Cadets are admitted only
in June or September, and only then when there's a vacancy in their
congressional district. But, pardon me. How old is your boy?"

"He is twenty-one,--my eldest,--my first husband's."

"And you wanted to make a soldier of him?" asked Cranston, smilingly.

"Indeed, no! It's the last thing on earth I'd have chosen, nor would he,
I am sure, if he were in his right mind."

"Oh, well, then I shouldn't worry about it, Mrs. Barnard. In this
country, you know, no one has to be a soldier unless he very much wants
to, and very often then he can't. And no boy who isn't in his right mind
could get into the Point even if given a cadetship. What made you think
of it?"

"Why, it seemed--at least I was told--it was the only way out of the
trouble he is in. He--is already in the army, but I'm told it isn't so
bad if one is an officer."

Cranston kept his face with admirable gravity.

"Then I assume that he has enlisted. If he is only just twenty-one and
enlisted without your consent before his birthday, you can still have
him out."

"Oh, we've tried that," said Mrs. Barnard, gravely, "but he had tried
twice before he was twenty-one, and they refused him until he brought
papers to prove his age. Then when he did enlist and we attempted to
have it annulled, they confronted us with these. They refused to believe
our lawyer."

"Well, pardon me, which was right, the papers or the lawyer?"

"The paper. It was my own letter; but I didn't suppose they had it
when--when we sought to have him released as not of legal age."

Cranston smiled. "Was it Mr. Barnard's proposition or the lawyer's?"

"Well, the lawyer said at first there was no other way that he knew of,
we'd have to do that. Of course you understand I wouldn't ordinarily
authorize an untruth, but--consider the degradation."

"The degradation of--having to--authorize the untruth?"

"No; of his enlisting,--becoming a soldier. I thought I'd had to suffer
a good deal, but I never looked for that.