utside to the southward terrace as
though to avoid these others, and, but for the cards, the observant
_portier_ might have thought them strangers to each other. The late
arrivals, as a rule, were garbed in khaki, just as they had come away
from Manila, and were objects of polite curiosity to the elegantly
capped, cloaked and uniformed Italian officers sauntering in from the
Piazza Umberto, many of whom saluted courteously, though few could tell
from the dress worn by the Americans which was officer and which was
private soldier.

It was full fifteen minutes before Captain Dwight appeared, though
little Jim had come bounding down the carpeted stairway all joy at
seeing a face or two he well remembered, and in meeting new friends, who
were unspeakably welcome because they were soldiers, American soldiers,
_our_ soldiers. Father, he said, would be down in a moment. Mamma was
not quite well, over-tired, perhaps, from the long drive and day at
sight-seeing and shopping. Even when Dwight appeared, shaking hands most
cordially, rejoicefully, with all, and, indeed, nearly embracing Sandy
Ray, whom he had known since that young gentleman's babyhood, it was a
disappointment to all his visitors that he seemed worried and harassed.
Mrs. Dwight, he explained, had not benefited as they had hoped by the
journeyings abroad, and she had just had something like a sinking spell.
They would have to excuse her a while. She'd be down later. "But you,
too, Sandy boy! What a tough time you must have been having! I hadn't
heard of your being ill. I haven't heard anything, in fact. Your father
hasn't written to me at all. What has been the matter?"

And then it appeared that Sandy had been ailing for weeks on top of a
not very serious wound, "wasn't at all fit," yet didn't wish to come
home--had been ordered out of the Islands, in fact. And then, as it
further appeared, when Dwight turned, looking for little Jim, all
eagerness that Sandy should see how splendidly the lad was grown and
developed since their parting in Arizona years ago, when Jimmy was just
beginning to toddle about and talk, there stood the boy, his big blue
eyes fixed on the pallid, solemn face of Lieutenant Ray with a look of
bewilderment and trouble. Fowne of the Engineers spoke of it later to
Foster, who just at that moment had seized Jimmy and swung him to his
shoulder, where, instead of gleefully pounding his captor's head and
laughing merrily, as of old he would have don