"You need not say 'you'--I should never say such things," Cherry declared; this vision of other girls acting as a tonic, though she laughed with the rest. "Of course not! You do not say anything to me," retorted Magnus. "She is too polite to interrupt you," said Rose. "Do you mean to say that West Point girls talk like that?" "Some of the girls. Cherry will when I have walked with her a few times." Cherry glanced up in quick denial, meeting then the aforesaid eyes looking so handsome and competent and full of frolic and power that her own beat a hasty retreat. "And you walk with such girls?" demanded Violet. "Oh, yes--" Magnus said easily. "One cannot be uncivil just because they are complimentary." "But before breakfast!" said Rose. "Is there no other half hour in the day that would do?" "My dear girl, it's not _that_ half hour in particular; it is every half hour they can get. You wouldn't have them pink and white their cheeks for nothing." "Pink their cheeks?" "Why, yes," said Magnus. "Pink them--frost them. I'm sure I don't know how it's done." "You are telling traveller's tales," said Mrs. Kindred gravely. "Well, I like that!" said Magnus. "Why, mammy, they _all_ do it. Clinker says so. At least not all, I suppose. Of course, there are exceptions." "Charlemagne"--began Mrs. Kindred. But at this word Magnus turned to her and "stood attention," bracing up to the fullest extent, and saluting with such profound gravity and respect that the rest all shouted, and the mother's face gave way. "There is no doing anything with you," she said. "You must give them no end of trouble at West Point. Go upstairs and take off that toggery, and see if you can be a reasonable boy." "I've got to give Cherry her walk first," said Magnus. "She has never walked with a real live cadet; and she may as well practise on me before she undertakes the rest of the Corps next summer." "I look like that," said Cherry, with some scorn. "Very much like it, I should say," responded Magnus. "I know how it will be. 'Say, Kindred, who's that awfully nice girl you've got on hand? Introduce me, won't you? Your sister, aint she? Well, don't let her promise all her walks to those spoony fellows. You want her to have a good time, you know.'" Magnus hit it off with excellent mimicry, and the room was in a buzz of amusement. "Then I shall say," he went on, "that my sisters are in quite another package, and that to ensure her having a good time, she has promised all her walks to me." "She hasn't at all," said Violet. "She will--by that time," said Magnus confidently; enjoying the pulsating colour in Cherry's face, and comparing it with the unmoved tinting of poppy leaves. "Why, even to-night she'll not walk home with anybody but Cadet Kindred, in full canonicals." "Magnus!" said his mother, "I think you are absolutely beside yourself." "Do cadets all talk in that style?" demanded Rose.