Was it like a good servant to listen to slighting talk about his Master's laws? To be silent when the Name that is above every name was lightly spoken? Could he not rise and go from any company? How long would he be quiet if his mother's name was handled so? He did always wince, he was glad to remember, but who had been the wiser?
"Not even a poor little storm flag!" he said bitterly to himself. "And these are but catspaws that come to me."
Magnus turned over on his elbow, and looked across to the flagstaff, where the colours were having a lively time in the breeze; looked and looked, his eyes growing very grave, his lips firm.
"You're worth a half hundred of me, old comrade," he said, with a reverent wave of his cap. What was that his mother had said in her last letter?
"Thou, therefore, my son, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Turning back after a while to his former position, Magnus found himself face to face with a pile of muslin and lace, of which Miss Saucy was the fair centre. She stood a little away, gazing pensively at him, her white kids clasped in what might be either entreaty or dismay.
"Oh, there's nothing the matter, is there?" she said. "I was _so_ afraid you'd had a sunstroke, or something. And you know you promised me a walk this morning."
"Yes, and it's very rude of you to forget it."
"Well, it is not too late for the walk," said Magnus, slipping the little book up his sleeve, and putting himself by the young lady's side. "Which way?"
"Round the plain. I mustn't get out of sight, because I have to walk with Mr. Chapman at twelve."
"You shan't make fun of him," said Miss Saucy. "Of course, he's not some people,--but then he never forgets his walks, which some people do. What was that book you were studying?"
"Then it was the black one. Boning discipline! I don't believe it. Not you."
"Let me see, then," she said. "I know it's just some old thing with a love letter inside. Give it to me!"
Magnus drew out the little book and handed it over, but Miss Saucy was a very bewildered girl indeed, as she turned the pages.
"_What?_" she said. "I can't make head or tail of this thing. What sort of stuff is it, anyhow?"
"It'll wear you--wear you out," said Miss Saucy. "You are at least two years older than you were last night. Oh, I don't know anything about religion, except the outside of course, don't you know; but that's enough. So the Chaplain has given you the points, and you're going to pose; Cadet Kindred, the serious man. Well, it'll be a variety. Come, let's go; I'll be the first to have a walk with him, anyhow. Will this do-o-o?" said the girl, drawling out her words, and bringing the corners of her little mouth as far down as they would go. "Mr. Kindred, what will be a profitable subject for us to discuss, as we take our solemn way under the brooding trees that shadow the path once called Flirtation? The low state of grace in the Corps, and what to do about it? Then when we've settled that we might turn our brilliant light upon the girls and go for them."