“Oh, no, just an afternoon at Mrs. Van Vorst’s. Nita had a lot of the girls there—” Nathalie stopped, for an expression, a sudden gleam in her brother’s eyes, caused her heart to give a wild leap. She drew in her breath sharply, but before the question that was forming could be asked, Dick waved the still flaming match hilariously above his head as he cried, “Well, sister mine, I’ve taken the plunge, and I’ve come off on top, for I’ve joined the Flying Corps, and I’m going to be an army eagle!” “Flying Corps?” repeated Nathalie dazedly. “What do you mean?” “I mean, Blue Robin, that I’m going to be an aviator, a sky pilot,” replied the boy jubilantly. “I made an application some time ago to the chief signal officer at Washington. I was found an eligible applicant, for, you know, my course in the technical school in New York did me up fine. To-day I passed my physical examinations, and am now enlisted in the Signal Corps of the Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps. I’m off next week to the Military Aëronautics School at Princeton University. It’s an eight-weeks’ course. If I put it over,—and you bet your life I do,” Dick ground his teeth determinedly,—“I go into training at one of the Flying Schools, and then I’ll soon be a regular bird of the air; and if I don’t help Uncle Sam win the war, and manage to drop a few bombs on those Fritzies, I’ll go hang!” For one awful moment Nathalie stood silent, staring at her brother in dumb despair. Then she turned, and with a blur in her eyes and a tightening of her throat, blindly groped for the stairway. But no! Dick’s hand shot out, he caught the hurrying figure in his grasp, and the next moment Nathalie was sobbing on his breast. “That’s all right, little sis,” exclaimed the boy with a break in his voice, as he pressed the brown head closer. Then he cried, in an attempt at jocularity, “Just get it all out of your system, every last drop of that salted brine, Blue Robin, and then we’ll talk business.” This somewhat matter-of-fact declaration acted like a cold shower-bath on the girl, as, with a convulsive shiver, she caught her breath, and although she burrowed deeper into the snug of her brother’s arm her tears were stayed. “Dick, _how could you do it_? Think of mother!” Then she raised her eyes, and went on, “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of your getting ki—” But the girl could not say the dreaded word, and again her head went down against the rough gray of Dick’s coat. “Well, Blue Robin, I’m afraid you have lost that cheery little _tru-al-lee_ of yours,” teased the boy humorously. “You’ve cried so hard you’re eye-twisted. In the first place, I don’t intend getting killed if I can help it. And I can’t help leaving mother. You must remember I’m a citizen of the United States—” the boy was thinking of his first vote cast the fall before—“and I am bound by my oath of allegiance to the country to uphold its principles, even if it means the breaking of my mother’s apron-strings,” he added jokingly.