"No. I couldn't make up my mind. So many beauties they rattled me."

"All right," Custis said briskly. "Let's get up and look around the old
plantation."

"Good," Phil cried.

Custis called Jeb Stuart in vain. He refused to answer or to budge.

Phil found his shoes at the door neatly blacked and the moment he began
to stir a grinning black boy was at his heels to take his slightest
order.

"I don't want _any_thing!" he said at last to his dusky tormentor.

"Nuttin tall, sah?"

"Nuttin tall!"

Phil smiled at the eager, rolling eyes.

"Get out--you make me laugh--"

The boy ducked.

"Yassah--des call me if ye wants me--I'se right outside de do'."

The two cadets ate breakfast alone. The house was yet asleep--except the
children. Their voices could be heard on the lawn at play. They had been