“Laura,” he said softly, “if we remain here all afternoon there is a lot that we shall fail to see.  Are you for going on with our walk?”

Laura Bentley looked up at him with something of a little start.  Perhaps she, too, had been thinking, but a girl may not speak all that passes in her mind.

“Yes,” she answered; “let us keep on.”

Dick, as he walked beside her, was tortured with the feeling that Laura Bentley might not wait long before making her choice of men in the world.  Some other fellow, more enterprising than he, might-----

“But it wouldn’t be fair!” muttered Prescott to himself.  “I have no right to ask her to tie herself for years, and then perhaps fail myself.”

Laura thought her cadet companion appeared a bit absent minded during the rest of the walk.  Who shall know what passes in a girl’s innermost mind?  Perhaps she divined what was moving in his mind.

As they passed by the coast battery, then came up by Battle Monument, and so to the hotel, they found Greg and Anstey leaning against the veranda railing, chatting with Belle and Miss Griffin.  These latest arrivals joined the others.  Mrs. Bentley at last came down and joined them.

Thrice, in duty bound, Dick glanced at his watch.  The third time a sigh full of bitterness escaped him.

“This is the meanest minute in my life,” he declared.  “It is time to say good-bye, for we must get back to camp and into full-dress uniform for parade.”

“But shall we not see you after parade? asked Laura, looking up quickly, an odd look flitting over her face.

“No; we are soldiers, and move by schedule,” signed Dick.  “After parade there will be other duties, then supper.  And you are going at the end of parade!”

Bravely Prescott faced the farewells, though he knew more of the wrench than even Laura could have guessed.

“But you will come again in winter?” he murmured in a low voice to Laura.

“If mother permits,” she answered, looking down at her boot tip, then up again, smiling, into his face.

“Mrs Bentley, you’ll bring the girls here again, this winter, won’t you?” appealed Dick.

“If Dr. Bentley and Belle’s parents approve, I’ll try to,” answered the matron.

Then came the leave-takings, brief and open.  With a final lifting of their caps Dick and the others turned and strode down the path.  Laura and Belle gazed after them until the young men had disappeared into the encampment.

But you may be sure the girls were over on the parade ground by the time that the good old gray battalion had turned out and marched over, forming in battalion front.

It was a beautiful sight.  Mrs. Bentley wasn’t martial, but as she looked on at that straight, inflexible wall of gray and steel, as the band played the colors up to the right of line, the good matron was thinking to herself: