he Gibraltars and Jackson balls, it does
not seem such a revolution," said Mary Leonard; but she spoke forlornly,
and did not care much for her own joke. It looked almost as if their
holiday was to be turned into a day of mourning; there was depression in
the air of the busy, bustling active streets, through which the
gray-haired women wandered, handsome, alert, attentive, but haunted by
the sense of familiarity that made things unfamiliar and the knowledge
of every turn and direction that yet was not knowledge, but ignorance.

"Look here, Lucy Eastman," said Mary Leonard at last, stopping
decisively in front of what used to be the Baptist Church, but which
was now a business block and a drug-store where you could get peach
phosphate, "we can't stand this any longer. Let's get into a carriage
right away and go to the old fort; that can't have changed much; it used
to be dismantled, and I don't believe they've had time, with all they've
done here, to--to mantle it again."

They moved towards a cab-stand--of course it was an added grievance that
there was a cab-stand--but the wisdom of the prudent is to understand
his way.

"Mary," said Lucy Eastman, detaining her, "wait a minute. Do you think
we might--it's a lovely day--and--there's a grocer right there--and
dinner is late at the hotel"--She checked her incoherence and looked
wistfully at Mary Leonard.

"Lucy, I think we might do anything, if you don't lose your mind first.
What is it, for pity's sake, that you want to do?"

"Take our luncheon; we always used to, you know. And we can have a hot
dinner at the hotel when we come back."

Without replying, Mary Leonard led the way to the grocer's, and they
bought lavish supplies there and at the bakery opposite. Then they
called the cab.

"Do you remember, Lucy, we used to have to think twice about calling a
cab, when we used to travel together, on account of the expense," said
Mary Leonard, as they waited for it to draw up at the curbstone.

"Yes," answered Lucy; "we don't have to now." And then they both sighed
a little.

But their smiles returned as they drove into the enclosure of the old
fort. There they lay in the peaceful sun--the gray stones, the few
cannon-balls, sunk in the caressing grass, with here and there a rusty
gun, like a once grim, sharp-tongued, cruel man who has fallen somehow
into an amiable senility.

"I read an article in one of the magazines about our coast defences,"
said Lucy Eastman,