estily:

"Florence Fleming, you're only a kid yet, though the best one I know;
and if I should tell you the name I was called and which brought on the
fight, you would not understand. But you'll grow up some day, and then
you will understand. Now, remember this fight, and when some woman, or
possibly some man, calls you a--a cat, you'll feel like fighting, too."

"But I wouldn't mind," she answered, firm in her position. "Papa called
me a kitten to-day, and I didn't get mad."

"Well, Florrie," he said, wearily, "I won't try to explain. I'm going
away before long, and perhaps I won't come back again. But if I do,
there'll be another fight."

"Going away, Billie!" she cried in alarm. "Where to?"

"To Annapolis. I may stay, or I may come back. I don't know."

"And you are going away, and you don't know that you'll come back! Oh,
Billie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you got licked, too. Who did it? I hate
him. Who licked you, Billie?"

"Never mind, Florrie. He'll tell the news, and you'll soon know who he
is."

He walked on, but the child headed him and faced him. There were tears
in the gray eyes.

"And you're going away, Billie!" she exclaimed again. "When are you
going?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Whenever I am sent for. If I don't see you
again, good-by, Florrie girl." He stooped to kiss her, but straightened
up, remembering the condition of his face.

"But I will see you again," she declared. "I will, I will. I'll come to
your house. And, Billie--I'm sorry I scolded you, really I am."

He smiled ruefully. "Never mind that, Florrie; you always scolded me,
you know, and I'm used to it."

"But only when you did wrong, Billie," she answered, gravely, "and
somehow I feel that this time you have not done wrong. But I won't scold
the next time you _really_ do wrong. I promise."

"Oh, yes, you will, little girl. It's the privilege and prerogative of
your sex."

He patted her on the head and went on, leaving her staring, open-eyed
and tearful. She was the child of a neighbor; he had mended her dolls,
soothed her griefs, and protected her since infancy, but she was only as
a small sister to him.

While waiting for orders to Annapolis, he saw her many times, but she
did not change to him. She changed, however; she had learned the name of
his assailant, and through her expressed hatred for him, and through her
sympathy for Billie as the disfigurements left his face, she passed the
border between childhood and woma