style="font-size:15px;"> "You promised me a game of croquet," she said to Kathie, with great earnestness.
Kathie glanced up in surprise. When she had proposed it that morning Ada declared it stupid, and said she had grown tired of it. Uncle Robert, knowing nothing of this, answered for her. "Of course," he said; "there are the boys. Rob, don't go away, you are wanted."
Rob made an impatient gesture with his hand, as if he would wave them all out of sight. Uncle Robert walked down to the boys. "Ada would like to play croquet," he remarked, pleasantly.
"I'm just in the humor for a game myself," answered Dick; but Rob's brow knit itself into a little frown.
"Come, girls!"
Mr. Meredith accompanied them. "We will be umpires," he declared.
Ada chose Dick for a partner. Rob thought it wasn't much fun playing with Kathie. He was rather careless, and in the first game they were badly beaten, which made Rob altogether out of humor. Why couldn't the girls have stayed on the balcony and talked?
"I can't play!" he said, throwing down his mallet.
Uncle Edward picked it up. "Now, Kathie, let us beat them all to ribbons and fragments!" he exclaimed, gayly, taking her brother's place.
Rob fell out of the ranks to where his uncle stood in the shade of a great tulip-tree.
"Soldiers!" he said, in a low, half-laughing tone.
Rob colored. "I didn't want to play a bit! I wish girls – "
"But a brave soldier goes off of the field after a defeat in good order. If he has done his best, that is all that is required of him."
Rob knew that he had not done his best at all, although he was angry with the mortification of losing the game.
"Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,"
said Uncle Robert, using his quotation against him.
"But that doesn't mean paltry little matters like this!" – with all a boy's disdain in his voice.
"It means everything when one is right. As Mr. Meredith said a few moments ago, there is a good deal of soldiering in life which must be all voluntary. That ought to suit your ideas. And I think the great Captain is often very patient with us, Rob. He bought us all with a price, you know, whether we serve him or not."
"But it is so hard for me to be" – Rob made a great effort and said, frankly – "good-tempered."
"I do not think that is it altogether."
"What then?" and Rob looked up in a little astonishment.
"We will put it on a military basis, – shirking one's duty because it is not pleasant."
"There was no particular duty about playing croquet!" – in the same surprised tone.
"Why did you do it at all then?"
"Because – "
"Courtesy to a guest becomes a duty in a host."
"But there was Kathie. Dick and I were going down to take a row."
"I have a fancy Dick likes the croqueting as well as he would have liked the rowing."
Dick Grayson's pleasant laugh floated over to them as he said, "Not so bad a beat, after all, Mr. Meredith."
"The life soldiering is not quite so arbitrary. A good deal of it is left to conscience. But if a sentinel at some outpost followed his own devices and let a spy pass the line – "
"He would be shot, of course."
"It seems hard, doesn't it, just for one little thing? Yet if one or two men escaped punishment the army would soon be in a state of insubordination. Then when a captain came to lead them in battle each man might consider his way and opinion best. Would it answer?"
"No, it wouldn't," replied the boy. "But, Uncle Robert, if God had made us – stronger."
"He offers us his strength daily."
"But it is so – I mean you never can think of it at the right moment."
"That is the secret of our duty to him, – to think of his wishes at the right time. He means, in this life, that we shall not seek to please ourselves altogether; but there is no guard-house, no bread-and-water rations, only a still, small voice to remind us."
Rob was silent for some moments, watching the players, and wondering why everything fretted him so easily. Were all the rest of the world to have their own way and pleasures, and he never? "Uncle Robert," he began, presently, "don't you think it fair that I should follow out my own wishes sometimes? Is it not unjust to ask me to give up always?"
"Are you asked to give up always?" – and the elder smiled.
"Well – " Rob grew rather red and confused.
"Which would give you the most satisfaction, – to know that you had made two or three people happy, or to enjoy some pleasure alone by yourself? This is the chief thing the Captain asks of us voluntary soldiers; and did not a wise man say that 'he who ruleth his own spirit is greater than he who taketh a city'?"
"There is more in volunteering than I thought," Rob said, gravely, after a long pause; "I am afraid, after all, that I am one of the kind waiting for a draft."
"And, if you wait for that, you may be left out altogether. Rob, it is not very easy work to march and countermarch, to dig trenches, throw up earthworks, keep your eyes open and your senses keen through dreary night-watches and the many other duties that fill up a soldier's life. It is harder for some men to keep faithful to these than to go into battle and die covered with glory. But on the other side there will be a few questions asked. What was the man's life? I often think of what the Saviour said, – not be faithful in death, but be 'faithful unto death.' There, we have had quite a sermon. Next month you will be a new recruit, you know."
"Two games!" exclaimed Dick, as they advanced. "Each party has won one."
"And I am tired," said Ada, languidly.
"Just one more," pleaded Dick; "I know that I shall have better luck."
"I can't," Ada replied.
Rob's first impulse was to say, "I'll take her place"; but he felt that would leave Ada to her own resources again. He did not care anything about Ada's noticing him, – indeed, she rather ignored him when Dick was around; but he had a fancy that Dick was his friend, and did not belong so exclusively to the girls.
"Rob, I'll try you," Mr. Meredith exclaimed, remarking the wistful face.
So Ada and Dick had a ramble about the grounds, as Kathie, feeling she was not very earnestly desired, lingered to watch the players. It was a pretty sharp game, but Robert beat.
"Though I do not think you played your best at the last," the boy said.
Uncle Edward gave a queer little smile that set Rob to musing. What if people sometimes acted a little differently, for the sake of sparing his unlucky temper!
"I
