But if my Familey slept mentaly I did not.  At once I suspected William.  Being still not out, and therfore not listened to with much atention, I kept my piece and said nothing.  And I saw this.  William was not what he seemed.

As soon as dinner was over I went into my father’s den, where he brings home drawings and estamates, and taking his Leather Dispach case, I locked it in my closet, tying the key around my neck with a blue ribben.  I then decended to the lower floor, and found Carter Brooks in the hall.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.  “Have you young Turks—­I mean young Patriots any guns at this camp of yours?”

“Not yet.”

“But you expect to, of course?”

I looked at him in a steady manner.

“When you have put on the Unaform of your Country” I said, “or at least of Plattsburg, I shall tell you my Milatary secrets, and not before.”

“Plattsburg!” he exclaimed.  “What do you know of Plattsburg?”

I then told him, and he listened, but in a very disagreeable way.  And at last he said: 

“The plain truth, Bab, is that some good-looking chap has filled you up with a lot of dope which is meant for men, not romantic girls.  I’ll bet to cents that if a fellow with a broken noze or a squint had told you, you’d have forgotten it the next minute.”

I was exasparated.  Because I am tired of being told that the defence of our Dear Country is a masculine matter.

“Carter” I said, “I do not beleive in the double, standard, and never did.”

“The what?”

“The double standard,” I said with dignaty.  “It was all well and good when war meant wearing a kitchin stove and wielding a lance.  It is no longer so.  And I will show you.”

I did not mean to be boastfull, such not being my nature.  But I did not feel that one who had not yet enlisted, remarking that there was time enough when the Enemy came over, etcetera, had any right to criticise me.

12 Midnight.  How can I set down what I have discovered?  And having recorded it, how be sure that Hannah will not snoop around and find this record, and so ruin everything?

It is midnight.  Leila is still out, bent on frivolaty.  The rest of the Familey sleeps quietly, except father, who has taken cold and is breathing through his mouth, and I sit here alone, with my secret.

William is a Spy.  I have the proofs.  How my hand trembles as I set down the terrable words.

I discovered it thus.

Feeling somewhat emty at bed time and never sleeping well when hollow inside, I went down to the pantrey at eleven P. M. to see if any of the dinner puding had been left, although not hopeful, owing to the servants mostly finishing the desert.

William was in the pantrey.

He was writing somthing, and he tried to hide it when I entered.