"'Naturally, I glanced back, and my blood fairly ran cold, for there, riding along with a broad grin on his face at sight of our ridiculous turnout, was Lieutenant Boglin! I was so amazed at seeing him that I just stood still in the road and stared, feeling my face get redder and redder. Somehow I had no power to move. He didn't recognize me till he was opposite us, but the instant he did, he was off his horse and coming up to shake hands, and I was trying to account for our appearance. It seems he had been with the troops up at Leon Springs for target practice, and was taking a day off while they were breaking camp. He had been commissioned to look at a polo pony somebody had for sale in Bauer, and thought while he was about it he would call and see the Ware family, after he had had dinner at the hotel. He was on his way there. "'Well, there I was! I couldn't ask him to go on such a babyfied lark as our Valentine picnic. I couldn't leave the children and take him over home, because my time is Mrs. Mallory's. Even if she had excused me, the children would have raised an unstoppable howl, and probably would have followed us. They are making grand strides in the courtesy business, but they are still far from being models of propriety. "'When I had explained to the best of my ability, I told him I would be through at five, and asked him to wait and take supper with us. I could see that he was inwardly convulsed, and I do believe it was because we all looked so ridiculous and he wanted to see the show a second time that he accepted my invitation with alacrity. As soon as he started on to the Williams House, I stopped under a tree and wrote a scrawl to mamma on the margin of the newspaper that was spread on top of the lunch-basket. Then I gave Meliss a dime to run over home with it, so that the family needn't be taken by surprise if Bogey happened to get there before I did. "'But it seems that he forgot the directions I gave him for finding the house, and about ten minutes to five, as the children and Meliss were finishing the lunch which was spread out on the Council Rock, he came climbing up the side of the hill. The children had been angelic before his arrival and they were good after he came, except--I can't explain it--there was something almost impish in the way they sat and watched us, listening to everything we said, as if they were committing it to memory to repeat afterward. Even Uncle August, in his heart-covered pajamas, squatted solemnly on the rock beside them and seemed to be stowing away something to remember.