to taps. How she loved the bugle-calls and the wild thrill the band gave
her, when it struck up a burst of martial music, and the troops went
dashing by! How she missed the drills and the dress parades; her rides
across the open prairie on her pony, beside her father; how she missed
the games she used to play with the other children at the fort on the
long summer evenings!

Something more than a mist was gathering in her eyes now. Two big tears
were almost ready to fall when the door opened and Mrs. MacIntyre came
in. In Virginia's eyes she was the most beautiful grandmother any one
ever had. She was not so tall as her daughter Allison, and in that
respect fell short of the little girl's ideal, but her hair, white as
snow, curled around her face in the same soft, pretty fashion, and by
every refined feature she showed her kinship to the aristocratic old
faces which looked down from the family portraits in the hall.

"I couldn't be as stately and dignified as she is if I practised a
thousand years," thought Virginia, scrambling up from the pile of
cushions to roll a chair nearer the fire. As she did so, her heel caught
in the rug, and she fell back in an awkward little heap.

"The more haste, the less grace, my dear," said her grandmother, kindly,
thanking her for the proffered chair. Virginia blushed, wondering why
she always appeared so awkward in her grandmother's presence. She envied
the boys because they never seemed embarrassed or ill at ease
before her.

While she was picking up her valentines the boys came in. If two of the
cavalier ancestors had stepped down from their portrait frames just
then, they could not have come into the room in a more charming manner