Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent À toutes choses; et si nous avions assez de volontÉ, nous aurions toujours assez de moyens. —Rochefoucauld.

"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say that never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits of boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at things cannot wear them out.

At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke down and cried. Partly for joy—for how handsome he was! and how those bell buttons did set him off!—partly for the wild longing it stirred to have him in their arms again. But with this came in another feeling: that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was their own wayward, careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away behind that perfectly buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point makes a wonderful change, which even accustomed eyes find marvellous; what wonder that these unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He had graduated from the mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.

If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it may be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that really belonged to it. This exact, stately young man, her Magnus, who used to catch her in his arms and whirl her off her feet. This soldierly fellow their brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.

"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will say?"

"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added, feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point and a soldier and look like my little boy still."

"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.

"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow seen, anywhere?"

"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed one bit. Just see how they laugh at you——" But that look stopped the words.

"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window. "What are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came through the hall and into the room.

"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager whisper.

"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for you."

"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.

But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at first sight of that wonderful presentation of her hero, but then she stood quite still; her fingers interlacing each other, the red and white playing hide and seek on her young face. That undefined change which they all felt came to her with a difference. For Magnus had never been hers to have and to hold, but only to gaze at from a safe distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become more wonderful than ever. Whether this put him further away or not gave Cherry no trouble just then; she had forgotten herself and the whole world at first sight of this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet Charlemagne Kindred.

"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said plaintively; and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in the most matter-of-fact way:

"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."

"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look inside; could Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest Miss Fashion.

Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.

"You are strange people not to like it," she said.

"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad because it looks different."

"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying the hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go flying open, in the Army."

"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing at her young soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me! Dear me! But take off your hat and sit down, child; here is a whole long letter to read."

There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her with bewildered eyes.

"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said. "Why, I thought he had the whole Government to do that."

"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone, I am sure," said Rose.

"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is homesick, Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."

"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.

"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his mother." Her voice choked a little.

"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite failing to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma, don't look so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of you; he ought to be."

"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then you can tell us all about him and the place and everything."

"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities with their young feet, were too much for her.

"Why, girls, I haven't the money."

"You shall have my new winter bonnet—which was to be," said Rose.

"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were not to be," said Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong box."

"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her hand.

"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She sat looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of her.

"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is as still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."

Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading began again.

"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he says," pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard. Every sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the two faces that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's shining eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always in sight. Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which the others missed; and so now and then retired into her own private meditations. "Bring up our three girls" and "when they come." Clearly, then, she also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever that might be.

"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean about their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the Antipodes?"

"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the girl, too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he says all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't really changed him one bit."

"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at the picture. "I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to the dress a little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you really think I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"

With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the railway companies would do the rest.

"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for your getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody could keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just fly out."

"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes the two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.

"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you. Read on, mamma, please."

So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"—third-class corporals and the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not clear up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully twice through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly announced that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get ready. And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they could go too.

And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn not only bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the conductor. The girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the gingercakes there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief embroidered with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small pincushion "to go in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent him her last little drawing of the old apple tree which had been his own special private gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they all went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours joining in.

"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went, we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest, and then he'd he provided for."

Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went home and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly away, very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she was going to see her boy.