Indian rugs, its surrounding waist-high
railing fitted with parallel grooves in which slid easily the frames of
the windows of translucent shells, set in little four-inch squares, or
the dark-green blinds that excluded the light and glare of mid-day.

With both thrown back there spread an unobstructed view of the
parade-ground even to the edge of the distant _glacis_, and here it
was the household sat to watch the military ceremonies, to receive their
guests, and to read or doze throughout the drowsier hours of the day.
"Campo de Bagumbayan" was what the natives called that martial flat in
the strange barbaric tongue that delights in "igs" and "ags," in "ings"
and "angs," even to repetition and repletion.

And here one soft, sensuous October afternoon, with a light breeze from
the bay tempering the heat of the slanting sunshine, reclining in a
broad bamboo easy-chair sat Maidie Ray, now quite convalescent, yet not
yet restored to her old-time vigorous health.

Her hostess, the colonel's amiable wife, was busy on the back gallery
leading to the kitchen, deep in counsel with her Filipino major-domo and
her Chinese cook, servitors who had been well trained and really needed
no instruction, and for that matter got but little, for Mrs. Brent's
knowledge of the Spanish tongue was even less than her command of
"Pidgin" English. Nevertheless, neither Ignacio nor Sing Suey would fail
to nod in the one case or smile broadly in the other in assent to her
every proposition,--it being one of the articles of their domestic faith
that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, could
best be promoted throughout the establishment by never seeming to differ
with the lady of the house. To all outward appearances, therefore, and
for the first few weeks, at least, housekeeping in the Philippines
seemed something almost idyllic, and Mrs. Brent was in ecstasies over
the remarkable virtues of Spanish-trained servants.

There had been anxious days during Maidie's illness. The Sacramento had
been ordered away, and the little patient had to be brought ashore. But
the chief quartermaster sent his especial steam-launch for "Billy Ray's
daughter," the chief surgeon, the best ambulance and team to meet her at
the landing; a squad of Sandy's troopers bore her reclining-chair over
the side into the launch, out of the launch to the waiting ambulance,
and out of the ambulance upstairs into the airy room set apart for her,
and, with M