Magnus was as good as his word, and stayed all day. What though Cherry was summarily sent off, after the early dinner, to sleep away the effects of her headache. Whether she slept or not I would not dare say; but certainly Magnus talked, and kept Mr. Erskine well amused, till she appeared again.

But he gave not a hint of the morning's work; about that, both parties most interested held their peace. I think they both craved silence for a while, and so kept in hiding; not ready yet to hear common tongues discuss the new-found wonder of the world. Cherry had been too shaken and bruised—there were too many sharp details still vividly in sight—for her to go straight to her father, as perhaps at another time she might have done; she needed to steady her own thoughts first. And for Magnus, too, the morning had been a hard one, even with its culmination of joy. Besides, counting Cherry his own from that time forward, the small ceremony of asking for her could well wait. Probably Mr. Erskine needed no telling how things stood. And if it were indeed a secret, what fun to keep it such! He wanted no words on the subject, just now, save from Cherry herself. Not yet.

All the family from the other house came up the hill to tea next day, but saw nothing new. If Cherry was more quiet than usual, that was not strange, after such a headache; and if Cadet Kindred, on the other hand, was as full of pranks as the veriest boy could be, it was not such an unheard-of thing as to draw any special attention. One thing they might have seen, that his mischief and frolic never came near Cherry; towards her his manner was a silent devotion of the most tender and serious sort, but he kept everyone else in such a breeze that no one gave heed.

Speeding back from the post-office with a handful of letters, Magnus announced that Messrs. Twinkle and Rig—alias Cadets Starr and McLean—were coming to make him a visit in the course of their furlough wanderings, and everybody at once went into committee on the proper and possible means of delighting them.

Magnus, indeed, turned off the matter very easily.

"It is done to your hand," he affirmed. "Mother's cake and pies and bread and butter—with two girls—would make the average cadet almost too happy to support life."

"Two girls!" Rose commented. "You seem to leave Cherry out."

"I did—that's a fact," Magnus said, with a queer gesture. "But then you also leave me out, and I am a third cadet; so it's all right. She'll not stand in the cold."

"I do not think she will, if the others have any sense," said Rose.

"The average cadet has not much, when there are girls around," said Magnus. "He has such hard rubs all day from the Profs and Tacs that their soft ways get the better of him."

"We have no soft ways, here," said Rose decidedly.

"Not for me, I know; but wait till Twinkle comes along."

"Twinkle—what a name!" said Violet. "He couldn't miss it, being a small man called Starr," said Magnus. "And he's not a blazer, by any means; keeps down well near the horizon, and never even poses as a first-magnitude man. Sometimes when he fesses more than usually frigid, we sing him to sleep with:

"I think that is perfectly mean!" said Rose indignantly. "Making sport of each other's misfortunes."

"We should die if we didn't make sport of something," said Magnus. "And you laugh easier when you take another man's scalp, than when he takes yours."

"Well, of all the lingo that ever was heard, I think your cadet slang is the queerest," said Violet.

"Glad it meets your approval," Magnus said, with a bow. "Say, Cherry, just promise you'll walk with nobody but me, while those fellows are here. Have a previous every time. These girls are so keen-set for brotherly kindness that they'll be sacrificing themselves on me to let you have the strangers. You're too tall for Twinkle, and Rig will turn your head."

"Or she will turn his," said Violet.

"I suppose that is it. But it wouldn't do for Rig to get rattled. The poor boy has got to go back and bone for dear life. Rose will keep him up to his duty; talk geometry to him, and make his life a burden."

"Rose will?" said that young person, lifting her eyebrows. "Well, I wish Cherry would talk some sense into you."

"Nobody can do it half so well," said Magnus, with a change of tone. "And she is going to try; she is to give me a special private lecture every day I am here. So that it is really quite providential to have Twinkle and Rig on hand, for they'll keep you two girls amused and out of the way." "Indeed! And who is to amuse mother?"

"Cherry and I."

And Magnus stooped down by his mother, with arms about her neck, and laid his face close to hers.

"Cherry and I, mammy," he said softly. "Do you understand? Cherry and I?"

Only Cherry saw the little start, the eager look at him, and the slight nod with which Magnus answered. But Mrs. Kindred was a wise woman, and said no word. Perhaps she prayed a little more for the two after that; though really I do not know whether she could. There sprang up an instant wish in Cherry's mind, however, that no word should be said to anybody else until the two strange cadets should have made their visit and gone. Magnus was quite wild enough, even with this slight check upon his proceedings. And an unconsciously deprecating look went over to him, which the young man caught, read, and answered with a profound bow.

"Yes, lady," he said; "your commands shall be obeyed. Even to the half of my fortune. Or, as I haven't any at all, perhaps the whole will not be too much."

"By the way," said Mr. Erskine, noting (and somehow resenting) the pink tints that came up in Cherry's cheeks; "what has become of that 'very best sort of a girl' you talked so fast about last week?"

"What has become of her?" Magnus repeated, standing involuntary "attention."

"Yes. Where is she?"

"At home, sir."

"I will not ask where that is, as I have not permission," said Mr. Erskine, smiling now; "but what does she say to your coming here first and staying so long?"

"She has made no objection as yet, sir. So I do not think she will."

"Well, she ought, if she cares enough for you," said Mr. Erskine. "Boy, I'm afraid you have got yourself tangled up in a foolish thing."

"What should you call 'enough,' sir?"

"Well—all she can," said Mr. Erskine.

"How much could any first-best girl care for me, sir?" said Magnus, moving a step or two for a better view of Cherry.

"Oh, you need not try the modest game here," said Mr. Erskine, laughing at him. "It is too late in the day for that. If she only cares a little, let her go; and find one who will love all there is in you, and a good deal more that she thinks is there. I wouldn't give a counterfeit five cents for a tepid girl."

Mr. Erskine spoke with such disgustful energy that everybody laughed out.

"But what girl is this?" Rose demanded. "Someone you never told us of?"

"There are fifty girls I never told you of."

"And besides, Rose, he is only attitudinising," said Mr. Erskine. "I do not believe the girl is in existence that could get him away. He is just young man enough to like the part of an easy-minded lover."

Magnus remarked with some energy that it was better than the part of an uneasy-minded lover, every time. But now the fun of the thing got hold of him, and sealed his lips in earnest. No, if really people could not see, they could wait.

Several other things came in to further and abet the silence.

First of all, the neighbourhood waked up to the fact that a prospective brigadier was among them, and the inroads to see Magnus, and to hear him tell his experience, were many—and "a nuisance." So he himself declared, making wry faces over his popularity.

Then, Mr. Erskine had one of his suffering weeks, when troubling him with questions was not to be thought of. Magnus detailed himself as head nurse, taking all the night work, sending Cherry off to bed, and gathering up the reins generally in his own hands, proving himself most tender and efficient as well as strong. Of course, things must be talked over before he went back; but even Cherry herself could not think this a good time.

On the back of all these hinderances, and just as Mr. Erskine began to be about again, came the other two cadets.