"Mother," said Sandy, coming in at the moment, "have you seen--has anything been seen of a blouse of mine sent home Tuesday evening? I can't find it, yet the troop tailor swears he left it here himself." "Who received it?" asked Mrs. Ray. "We were all home dressing for the reception." "Why, that's the queer part of it," was the answer. "He says he found the back door open, knocked twice and nobody answered, so he walked in the kitchen, laid the bundle on the table and came out and shut the door after him." Mrs. Ray thought a moment. "I gave Sarah permission to be out, and Minnie was up here helping us. That may have accounted for his knock being unanswered. You went down before I did, 'Cilla," she continued, turning to her niece, who was busy at the desk. "Was Sarah back then? I thought I heard you speak to someone." "To two of the Bible class," said 'Cilla. "They came to say we couldn't have the use of that little room back of the chapel. I don't understand it at all. We offered to clean it out and store the boxes in the cellar, but----" And 'Cilla shrugged her shoulders. She had begun to believe that the chaplain was jealous of her influence over certain intractables in the garrison, and was aiming to thwart her. This view Mrs. Ray could not share. She presently put down her pen and passed out into the dining-room. "It's a dark little hole at best, Pris," said Sandy, "and I offered you a good bright room at the Exchange--the very one your paragon used for about the same purpose when he was stationed here." Sandy _would_ tilt at his cousin's fad at times, and this was a time, for Sandy had been crotchety for a week. "My paragon, as you call him--my ideal of the soldier as we saw him after Porto Rico," answered 'Cilla, with dignity and precision, "held his classes there when the rest of the building was not what it is to-day--a rumshop." "Not a drop of rum to be had on the premises now, Pris--though there might have been then." "I don't believe it! _My_ general was an ascetic. No one ever heard of his using liquor--and wine is only liquor in another form." "Come to the library and I'll show you what your General Ascetic wrote of himself after he was so horribly shot in the Sioux campaign. He said he owed his recovery to a winter in California and drinking plenty of good red wine that made blood." But Priscilla knew that Sandy "had the papers to prove it," and preferred not to see them, lest her ideals come tumbling. "That might have been necessary and by physician's prescription," said she. "What I condemn is its usage when there is no excuse. I should feel that I was enticing my class into temptation if I led them daily to the Canteen, and most of them feel as I do about it. Blenke, for instance--though you don't believe in him, Sandy--when I told him of your offer, he said he would rather not set foot under that roof."