married life was known intimately for nineteen years, "Mrs.
McGillicuddy keeps all the soldiers' wives satisfied and is a boon to
the regiment."

"That's so, sir," the Sergeant agreed, "and the chaplain, he
compliments her on the way she marches them eight children and me to
the chapel every Sunday, rain or shine, me havin' the right of the
line, Missis McGillicuddy herself bein' the rear guard, the line
properly dressed, no stragglers, everything done soldier-like. But
Missis McGillicuddy don't follow me around like a poodle dog, as the
palmist, and the mind reader, and the dream book said she would. She's
hell-bent--excuse me sir--on havin' her own way all the time."

Just then a vision flitted past the door. It was Anita, dressed for
dinner, in a filmy gown of pale blue and white, the colors of the
Blessed Damozel. A light came into Colonel Fortescue's eyes as they
rested on this darling of his heart. The Sergeant had a pretty
daughter, Anna Maria by name, who was just Anita's age and of whom the
Sergeant was extravagantly fond. The two fathers, the Colonel and the
Sergeant, exchanged intelligent glances. Often, in their twenty years
of daily association, they talked together about things of which they
never spoke to any other man.

"Anna Maria is a fine girl," said the Colonel.

"Yes, sir," answered the Sergeant, "if she'd just get over the fancy
she has for Briggs, the artillery corporal. That man is bound to be
killed by a wheel runnin' over him. You know, sir, if there is
anything on earth that skeers me stiff it is a horse hitched to any
kind of a vehicle. I don't mind ridin' 'em because then the horse's
heels is behind me. But in a vehicle the horse's heels is in front of
me, and it makes me nervous. I have told Anna Mariar that she shan't
so much as look at Briggs unless he exchanges into the cavalry, so the
horse's heels will be behind him, and not in front of him."

The entrance bell rang, and Kettle went to the front door. Colonel
Fortescue could neither hear nor see the visitor, but the step and the
sound of a military cloak thrown on a chair indicated the arrival of a
junior lieutenant. Colonel Fortescue looked annoyed. The junior
officer running after Anita bothered him even more than Briggs, the
artillery corporal, bothered Sergeant McGillicuddy. Anita was but a
child--only seventeen; the Colonel had proclaimed this when he brought
Anita to the post. Colonel Fortescue did all that