"Thou art not thyself so wonderful old," Merrylips answered hotly. Rupert laughed. "Thy sash is knotted unhandily," he said. "Let me put it aright. Thou hast tied it like a girl." At that word Merrylips grew red and frightened. "Do not thou touch it!" she cried. "It liketh me as it is." She spoke so angrily, in her fright, that Rupert grew angry too. "In any case," he said, "thou hast no right to wear that sash. Thou art no officer." "Then," said Merrylips, "thou hast no right to wear that soldier's coat. Thou art thyself but a young lad and no soldier." Surely, there would have been a bitter quarrel, then and there, but just at that moment Slanning and Lieutenant Crashaw sauntered into the garden. "Hola, young Venner!" Slanning sang out. "Go to thy friends!" Rupert said, in a low voice. "They'll use thee fairly. I care not, I! 'Tis only little boys like thou are fain to be made much of." Then Rupert marched away, very stiffly, and Merrylips stood wondering what it was all about. But while she was wondering, Slanning and Crashaw came to the spot where she stood. They set to playing a fine game that Merrylips' brothers had often played at Walsover, a game in which they pitched horseshoes over a crowbar that was driven into the ground some twenty paces away. And part of the time they let Merrylips play too. So friendly were they all three together that at last Merrylips ventured to ask a question. "If it like you, Cornet Slanning, may I not wear this sash, even though I be not an officer?" "Who saith thou art not?" Slanning answered. Merrylips shook her head. Though she thought Rupert a rude lad, she could not bear tales of him. "I--I did but wonder," she stammered. "W-wonder no more!" bade Crashaw. "To be sure, thou art an officer--the youngest one at M-Monksfield, and b-brave as the best, eh, Tibbott?" "I'll try, sir!" Merrylips answered, and saluted him, just as Rupert had saluted Captain Brooke. And she did not see why those new brother officers of hers should have laughed aloud! CHAPTER XVII "WHO CAN SING AND WON'T SING--" As soon as Merrylips found that her secret was safe and that she seemed to every one a little boy, she enjoyed her days at Monksfield very much. Indeed, she would have been more than human, if she had not been pleased with all the notice that she won. She was the only child in a garrison of men, and from the horseboys in the stables to the officers in the mess-room, she was petted by all. The saddlers made her more leathern hand-balls than she could ever use. The smiths let her tug at the wheezy bellows in their sooty forge. The horseboys set her on the bare-backed horses when they led them to water. Even the cross men-cooks in the fiery kitchen made her sometimes little pasties for herself alone.