The answer was a smiling nod of assent as the younger lady buried her lovely, dark face in the flowers set before her by the assiduous waiter, and Stuyvesant felt sure she was trying to control an inclination to laugh. "Well, you must excuse me if I have been a little--slow," said the elder in evident perturbation. "You see--we meet such queer people travelling--sometimes. Don't you find it so?" The dark face was dimpling now with suppressed merriment. "Yes--occasionally," was the smiling answer. "But then, being the daughter of an army officer," pursued the other hurriedly, "you have to travel a great deal. I suppose you really--have no home?" she essayed in the half-hopeful tone to be expected of one who considered that a being so endowed by nature must suffer some compensatory discomforts. "Yes and--no," answered Miss Ray urbanely. "In one sense we army girls have no home. In another, we have homes everywhere." It is a reproach in the eyes of certain severe moralists that a fellow-being should be so obviously content with his or her lot. The elder woman seemed to feel it a duty to acquaint this beaming creature with the manifest deficiency in her moral make-up. "Yes, but I should think most any one would rather have a real home, a place where they weren't bounden to anybody, no matter if it was homely." (She called it "humbly," and associated it in mind with the words of Payne's immortal song.) "Now, when I went to see Colonel Ray about our society, he told me he had to break up everything, going to Cuba, but he didn't mention about your going West." "Father was a little low in his mind that day," said Miss Ray, a shade of sadness passing over her face. "Both my brothers are in the service, and one is barely seventeen." "Out at service!" interrupted the other. "You don't mean----" "No," was the laughing answer, and in Miss Ray's enjoyment of the situation her eyes came perilously near seeking those of Mr. Stuyvesant, which she well knew were fixed upon her. "I mean that both are in the army." "Well--I thought not--still--I didn't know. It's all rather new to me, this dealin' with soldiers, but I suppose I'll get to know all about it after a spell. Our society's getting much encouraged." "Red Cross?" queried Miss Ray, with uplifted brows and evident interest, yet a suspicion of incredulity.