were standing still, he tilted on his toes and dropped his head to one side as he expounded, until the ear wellnigh reposed upon the shoulder-strap. Ray, on the other hand, threw his head farther back and, unless he was angry, showed his white teeth to the molars.
As they came along the walk from the main gate and passed one by one the snug little brown cottages known as the officers' quarters, the ladies grouped on the colonel's piazza began their very natural comment—there were no other men in sight on that side of the garrison.
"Last year you never saw Major Stannard without Mr. Billings; now you never see him with him, and he is just as chummy with Mr. Ray," remarked our old friend Mrs. Turner, who was languidly swinging in the hammock, her eyes commanding a view of the sidewalk, and the sidewalk commanding a view of her very presentable feet encased in a new pair of French heeled slippers, and stockings whose delicate mauve tint matched the ribbons of her airy dress.
"Well, Mr. Billings is adjutant and cooped up in the office all day," was the reply of Mrs. Raymond, who could readily find reason for taking exception to the remarks or theories of her next-door neighbor and social rival.
There were five ladies in the group, all under thirty, two of them under twenty, only one unmarried, none of them avowedly interested in either of the two officers slowly approaching. No one of them, however, neglected a sweeping glance at her draperies or some slight readjustment of pose or petticoat. Possibly the formality would have been equally observed had they all been over fifty.
"I never could understand why Mr. Billings was made adjutant," remarked the one spinster, her eyes dreamily resting on the lithe form of Mr. Ray. "I don't mean, of course, that he doesn't do very well, but—there were so many others who would have—at least who deserved it so much more."
"Well, you must remember this," responded Mrs. Turner, "there wasn't anybody else when it was given to him, and there was no real reason why the colonel should remove him when he took command. Mr. Stryker was going as aide-de-camp; Mr. Gleason—well, anybody knows he wouldn't do; Mr. Crane and Mr. Wilkins were neither of them fit for it; Mr. Ray wouldn't have it, and Mr. Blake and Mr. Freeman hadn't joined. It was really Billings or nobody, except, of course, the second lieutenants. Dear me! how I wish one of them could have been appointed!" And Mrs. Turner sighed pathetically. The younger officers were her especial henchmen, and each in turn paid his devotion a year or more at the shrine. If any one of them had been put in power, how much easier 'twould have been to get the band every evening! and then the hops wouldn't have to close at midnight either! and Mrs. Turner was devoted to dancing.
"But papa says Mr. Billings is right about not letting the band play after midnight," broke in the young lady, whose years had been spent in many a garrison, and whose papa—the post surgeon—had pronounced views on matters of military and medical discipline. "Papa says the officers have no right to make the band play until late at night unless they pay them extra. They have to be up at reveille, and it's a shame to make them work all day and at night too!"
"The doctor is by no means alone in that idea," began a third speaker in a quiet voice, and both Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Raymond, who had impulsively burst into speech at the same instant, checked their nimble tongues, bridled, sweetly said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Stannard," and inclined attentive ears to a lady who at the moment had stepped from the open door-way to the piazza. It was evident that she was a late arrival, in whose presence the others felt bound to observe the deferential manners which further intimacy would possibly extinguish. "Indeed," she went on, "only this morning at breakfast Colonel Foster was saying that the bandsmen were getting their full share of work, and that Mr. Billings was quite right in the stand he made in the matter."
"Ah, Mrs. Stannard, I don't wonder Mr. Billings is devoted to you!" said Mrs. Raymond. "You are always ready to defend him."
"He was in our troop, you know, and I feel that he belongs to us to a certain extent," said Mrs. Stannard, smiling brightly, and nodding pleasant greetings to the two officers who were passing at the moment, still intent in their earnest talk. The major merely glanced at the piazza and pulled off his cap, as though he wished its fair occupants were beyond saluting distance. Ray bowed with laughing grace, and sung out cheerily,—
"Don't expect the major home just yet, Mrs. Stannard; he's giving me fits, and I'm in for a lecture."
The ladies were silent a moment, until the pair had passed on out of earshoot. Then Mrs. Turner took up the cudgels again.
"And yet, Mrs. Stannard, it wasn't so when Mr. Truscott was adjutant. We could have the band night after night if we wanted to, and surely you won't say that Mr. Truscott wasn't the very paragon of an adjutant."
"No, indeed," was the reply. "We all know how unequalled Mr. Truscott was; but then, were not the conditions very different, Mrs. Turner? For instance, in Arizona the band was not mounted, the men had no stable duty, and it was so hot in the daytime that they really had no duty to perform but to play after dark when it was cool. Now, here they have their horses, they have two parades each day; they practice every morning, and play on the parade every afternoon; that, with morning and evening stable duty, keeps them very busy, and don't you think Mr. Billings is right?"
Now, all this was well understood by both Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Turner's friends, and as put by Mrs. Stannard, the case was clearly in favor of the bandsmen and the adjutant. Down in the depths of her consciousness Mrs. Turner was well aware of the fact. She had gone over the fight with her liege lord, the captain, more than once since the spring weather had set in and the services of the band were in requisition several hours each day. She knew perfectly well that there was no parallel in the conditions existing in Arizona in Mr. Truscott's time and those of the day in Kansas with Billings. Still, she wanted to contrast the men and their methods, and, as is not unusual, pronounced the abstract statement that "it wasn't so with Mr. Truscott. Then we could have the band night after night." She was only stating a fact, was her mental justification, but that she was doing an injustice she would probably have not admitted for an instant.
Mrs. Stannard, however, had seen through the argument, and in her courteous way had shattered its effect. This put Mrs. Turner on her mettle, and she half rose from the hammock.
"Don't for a moment think I mean to criticise Mr. Billings, Mrs. Stannard; I really like him, very much; only it's so poky not to have the band now. The evenings are so lovely for dancing, and with so many young officers here, it seems such a pity to waste so much time. They are out drilling or shooting, or something, all day long, and who knows but what they'll all be ordered off somewhere the next minute? Then we can have the band all day and nobody to dance with. It's always the way."
"Well, I like Mr. Billings, too," said Mrs. Raymond, eager to say something pleasant of Mrs. Stannard's friend; "and Captain Raymond says he is a very soldierly officer—very military, I mean—and knows his duties so well, only we can't help contrasting him with Mr. Truscott. Mr. Truscott was so dignified and calm and deliberate, while Mr. Billings is a regular bunch of springs. They say he's very quick and irascible; real peppery, you know; but I suppose that is because they bother him a good deal."
"Mr. Billings has a very nervous temperament I know," replied Mrs. Stannard, "but we never thought him ill-tempered at Fort Gaines, and certainly Captain Truscott thinks all the world of him. They correspond constantly, and only last evening he showed me a letter just received from the captain."
"Did he?" said Mrs. Turner, with sudden interest. "What did he say about Grace?"
"About Mrs. Truscott?" said Mrs. Stannard, smilingly. "He said a good deal about her. She was so bright and well and so pleased with West Point, and they had such lovely quarters, looking right out on the plain where they could see everything that was going on, and Miss Sanford was visiting them——"
"What
