Lucy, defiantly. "I don't believe it will hurt her one bit, and I can't be so mean as not to tell her." With one shoe on she tiptoed into Marian's room and dropped down on the bed beside her. "Marian!" she whispered, giving her cousin's slender little shoulder a vigorous shake that made her start upright in bed with a frightened gasp. "Oh, who is it? Lucy, is it you?" "Yes, and the Twenty-Eighth is leaving! Right now,—I hear them marching by. I'm going down to see them off, and you can come if you like,—only I don't think you'd better." Lucy's caution came rather late to be of much use. Marian was out of bed in a second, and getting into her clothes with a remarkable disregard for convenience and comfort. "Just tie your hair with a ribbon;—I did," urged Lucy, finishing her shoes, "and hurry, Marian! What if we should miss them!" P 51 P 51 "I am hurrying," said Marian. Lucy felt suddenly enraged at her calmness, and almost wished she had let her sleep on undisturbed. But very soon Marian joined her fully dressed, and as the clock below struck three, the two girls tiptoed down-stairs and out by the unlocked front door. An army post at night is unlike any other place in the feeling of complete security it gives. This feeling leads the officers to leave their doors and windows always unfastened, and to allow their children to wander freely about on summer evenings. The post is a little world carefully administered, where every inhabitant is known and has his place, and the soldiers are the time-honored friends of the army children. Lucy looked over toward the Houstons' as she and Marian hurried along, wishing with all her might that Julia were awake. There was no moon, but the sky was bright with stars and the air clear and warm, though Marian shivered with nervous excitement, and her arm shook against the one Lucy had thrust through hers. P 52 P 52 At the head of the slope above the dock the two stopped, panting, with a murmur of voices and the never-ending sound of moving feet still in their ears, and stared
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