"Ah! just wait. Within a month I may be waving a flag in Cuba. This sound of revelry by night may be the last that I shall hear for a long time. My uniform may not be as becoming to me as this costume," and Tom threw back his head and strutted a few steps, as if to display to the best advantage the artistic costume that Mr. Weston had designed for him,--a most effective one with its crimson doublet, slashed sleeves, and long, silk trunk hose. "Oh, don't talk about war," cried Brenda, almost pettishly, while Nora, whose sparkling eyes and bright smile showed that she, at least, had enjoyed the evening, said gently, "Come, Brenda, there are Agnes and Ralph beckoning to us; I suppose they wish to count us all to see that we are safe and sound before they start for home." A little bantering, a word or two of good-bye to passing friends, and the merry group started for home, never, although they knew it not then,--never to be together again as they had been that evening. In the next few weeks war news was of chief importance, and Brenda, never a newspaper reader, now turned to the daily papers with great interest. One afternoon she came into Julia's room at the Mansion with her eyes suspiciously red. "You haven't been crying?" "Oh, no, not exactly crying, but--" At this time a tell-tale tear fell, and Brenda dabbed her eyes fiercely with a crumpled handkerchief. "There, there, tell me all about it," said Julia. "Oh, it's nothing. Only I've just been at a meeting at the State House." Then, by dint of a little questioning, Julia learned that Brenda had read the notice of a meeting to be held at the State House in the interests of the Massachusetts troops that should go to the war, and that she had decided to attend it. "Oh, it was dreadful," she said, not restraining the tears that were now undeniably falling. "They talked about bandages and ambulances and the hundreds that would be killed, and the dreadful things that happened in the Civil War, and I couldn't help thinking how terrible it would be for Arthur and Tom and all the others we know." "Arthur?" queried Julia; "I knew that Tom was going, but with his regiment from New York--but Arthur, why, he has never been in the militia?" "Oh, no," responded Brenda, "it's all his being in Washington. I wish that he had never heard of Senator Harmon. It seems that he's to have a commission in the regular army. The President is to make any number of new officers, and you have to have influence. Ralph had a letter this morning,--and I know he'll be killed." "Nonsense, child! If there is any fighting, it will be only on sea."