nard from within, "did you find all the nests
to-day?"

"All but two, Ma'am," said little Jane, as she let a tempting odor
escape from the tin oven. "The black hen got over the fence last night;
she's down in the lot. And the cropple-crown laid away."

"You'd better get them."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"If you'd just as lief."

"Oh, yes, Ma'am!"

"We'll go, too," said Ray.

"Oh, no, you needn't."

"We'd like to, little Jane. Are the cookies done? By George! don't they
look like manna? They'll last all the way to Fort Riley. And be manna in
the wilderness. Smoking hot. Have some, Vivia? Little Jane, I say, 't
would be jolly, if you'd go along and cook for the regiment."

"Is that all you'd want of me?"

"It's a wonderful region for grasshoppers out there, you know; you'd
improvise us such charming dishes of locusts and wild honey! As for
cookies, a snowflake and a sunbeam, and there they are," said Ray,
making inroads on the Fort-Riley stores; while little Jane set down a
cup of beaten cream by his side.

"Janets are trumps! Vivia, don't you wish you were going to the war?"

"Yes," said Vivia.

"There is something in it, isn't there?" said Ray. "You'll sit at home,
and how your blood will boil! What keeps you women alive? Darning
stockings, I suppose. There's only one thing I dread: 't would be hard
to read of other men's glory, and I lying flat on my back. Would you
make me cookies then, little Jane?"

Little Jane only gave him one swift, shy look: there was more promise in
it than in many a vow. In return, Ray tossed her the sparkle of his
dancing glance an instant, and then his eager fancies caught him again.

"We read of them," said he, "those splendid scenes. What can there be
like acting them? Ah, what a throb there is in it! The rush, the roar,
the onslaught, the clanging trumpet, the wreathing smoke, and the mad
horses. Dauntlessly defying danger. Ravishing fame from the teeth of the
battery. See in what a great leap of the heart you spring with the
forlorn hope up the escalade! Your soul kindles and flashes with your
blade. You are nothing but a wrath. To die so, with all one's spirit at
white-heat, awake, alert, aflame, must send one far up and along the
heights of being. And if you live, there are other things to do; and how
the women feel their fiery pulses fly, their hot tears start, as you go
by, thinking of all the tumult, the din, the daring, the danger, and you
a part of it!"

Little Jane was