[Illustration:  A SOLDIER.]

“Capt.  Drummond, is he ever told to do anything he can’t do?”

“A few years ago, Daisy, the English and the French were fighting the Russians in the Crimea.  I happened to be there on business, and I saw some things.  An order was brought one day to an officer commanding a body of cavalry—­you know what cavalry is?”

“Yes, I know.”

“The order was brought in—­Hallo! what’s that?”

For a voice was heard shouting at a little distance, “Drummond!—­Ho, Drummond!  Where are you?”

“It’s Mr. McFarlane!” said Daisy.  “He’ll come here.  I’m very sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said the Captain.  “Come,—­let us disappoint him.  He can’t play hide and seek.”

He jumped up and caught Daisy’s willing hand, with the other hand caught up her shawl, and drew her along swiftly under cover of the trees and shrubbery towards the river, and away from the voice they heard calling.  Daisy half ran, half flew, it seemed to her; so fast the strong hand of her friend pulled her over the ground.  At the edge of the bank that faced the river, at the top of a very steep descent of a hundred feet or near that, under a thick shelter of trees, Capt.  Drummond called a halt and stood listening.  Far off, faint in the distance, they could still hear the shout.

“Drummond!—­where are you?  Hallo!”

“We’ll go down to the river,” said the Captain; “and he is too lazy to look for us there.  We shall be safe.  Daisy, this is a retreat—­but it is not a hardship, is it?”

Daisy looked up delighted.  The little face so soberly thoughtful a few minutes ago was all bright and flushed.  The Captain was charmed too.

“But we can’t get down there,”—­said Daisy, casting her eye down the very steep pitch of the bank.

“That is something,” said the Captain, “with which as a soldier you have nothing to do.  All you have to do is to obey orders; and the orders are that we charge down hill.”

“I shall go head first, then,” said Daisy, “or over and over.  I couldn’t keep my feet one minute.”

“Now you are arguing,” said the Captain; “and that shews insubordination, or want of discipline.  But we have got to charge, all the same; and we’ll see about putting you under arrest afterwards.”

Daisy laughed at him, but she could not conceive how they should get to the bottom.  It was very steep and strewn with dead leaves from the trees which grew thick all the way.  Rolling down was out of the question, for the stems of the trees would catch them; and to keep on their feet seemed impossible.  Daisy found however that Capt.  Drummond could manage what she could not.  He took hold of her hand again; and then—­Daisy hardly believed it while she was doing it,—­but there she was, going down that bank in an upright position; not falling nor stumbling, though it is true she was not walking neither.  The Captain did not let her fall, and his strong hand seemed to take her like a feather over the stones and among the trees, giving her flying leaps and bounds down, the hill along with him.  How he went and kept his feet remained always a marvel to Daisy; but down they went, and at the bottom they were in a trifle of time.