s a revolutionized society long before that budding May morning on
which the captain had to take train for the far West, leaving wife and
little ones to his father's care until the long threatened and now
imminent campaign should be over. Then, should God spare his life
through what proved to be the fiercest and most fatal of ten fierce and
fatal summers, they should rejoin him at some distant frontier fort, and
the boys' triumphant reign at school be ended. Loudly did they clamor to
be taken with him. Stoutly did Louis maintain that his pony could keep
up with the swiftest racer in the regiment, and indirectly did he give
it to be understood at school that just as soon as the war really began
he'd be out with "C" troop as he had been in the past. The war had begun
and some savage fighting had already taken place, when the orders were
launched for the Eleventh Cavalry to concentrate for field service.
Cranston wired that he would give up the last ten days of his leave, and
Mrs. Cranston, brave, submissive, but weeping sore at times, set to
packing her soldier's trunk. It was their last evening together for
many a long month, and their friends knew it, and therefore, even if
they called to leave a sympathetic word with the grandparents, they did
not expect to see the captain and his wife. Once or twice the
gray-haired mother had come to twine her arms about her big boy's neck,
or to say that Mr. and Mrs. Somebody had just called, but wouldn't
intrude. It was, therefore, a surprise when towards nine o'clock she
came to announce a caller below,--a caller who begged not to be
denied,--Mrs. Barnard.

"Mrs. _Barnard_!" exclaimed the army wife, in that tone in which
incredulity mingled with surprise tells to the observant ear that no
welcome awaits the announced one.

"_Who is_ Mrs. Barnard?" asked the trooper, looking up from the depths
of his big trunk.

"Oh, her husband owns about half the tenth ward," said Mrs. Cranston the
elder, city bred, "and," hesitatingly, "you've often seen her in
church."

"At church--yes," answered her daughter-in-law, "but no one ever sees
her anywhere else. She has never called on me, has she?"

"No," said the elder lady. "They are old residents, though, and years
ago when the city was new your father and hers--indeed, her husband and
mine--were well acquainted, but we drifted apart as the city grew. She
was Almira Prendergast."

"I'm sure I never heard of her when I was a girl, though, o