"No, no, Nan," I cried, "don't throw open the lattice!"

"Why not?" she asked, her hands on the latch.

"Flying things! Bats and other tropical night birds."

"Ugh-h-h!" cried Nan, and let the lattice alone.

"Let's sit here," I said, setting our chairs almost against the lattice. Larry could not escape then if he wanted to, because it was a twenty-foot drop onto a lot of marble vases or the spiked edges of some cactus plants, and more than twenty feet to a marble walk and into the depths of some kind of a spouting fountain in the patio.

He had to stay, and, being an officer and a gentleman, of course, he was trying not to hear; but the lattice slats were loosefitting and we were sitting not two feet from them.

"Where did you hear of Larry last, Nan?" I began.

"Oh," said Nan, "I've been getting mamma to take all kinds of trips, Nettie, and every trip with the one idea of seeing Larry somewhere. Wherever I thought any of our warships came, there I'd specially get mamma to go. I can draw a map of this coast-line with all its ports in their proper places with my eyes shut. And the places in the different ports I've peeked into, Nettie !-knowing how curious Larry always was to see everything going on and hoping to run across him in that way. I even got mamma to go to a bull-fight last Sunday."

it when every old hen in our town went cackling from one house to another when the papers published that story about Larry losing so much money at cards one night? And some of these same women not able to afford a second maid and even doing their own fine laundering in secret -some of them playing afternoon bridge, Nettie, for a quarter of a cent a point. It just makes me sick. How do we know how many of them wouldn't gamble away ten thousand dollars in one night if they had it?"

And just then I heard "That's you, Nan!" in Larry's fervent voice, from behind the lattice.

Nan leaped up. I could feel her heart beating when she fell against me. “Did you hear that, Nettie?"

"I did hear something," I said "a word from one of the cooks or maids down-stairs it must have been. They take the air in the patio of an evening when their work is done. Remember, voices carry far in the tropics-especially when it is damp."

"I never knew that, Nettie," said innocent Nan-" that voices carry farther in the tropics. And I'm sure it is clear and lovely out." And she stood up to look through the lattice.

Now, the best defense to an attack, Ned always told me, is another attack; so "But Larry did drink too much that time, Nan," I said.

"A bull-fight, Nan!" I said. "Why not?" retorted Nan. "In our country we have prize-fights. And which is worse for men to maul beasts or to maul each other?"

man who did what Larry did, and own to it and be sorry right out, than a man that you never know when he is lying to you or not, or what he is likely to be doing when he is out of sight. And he gave me his promise in a letter that he would never touch another card or drink another glass of wine until I said he might. Mother wouldn't let me answer the letter. And he guessed how it was, and I don't blame him for writing her as he did. Mamma was too harsh. She paid too

much attention to town gossip, and I told her that. And she said: 'I think, Nan, a little travelling and discipline won't hurt you one bit'; and then Larry went and got his appointment to the marine corps, thinking there might be a war and some fighting for him down in this country."

Now, I always have held that women, even as men of any account, are never so attractive as when they throw aside all affectation and stand forth just as they are that is, if they're wholesome and good to begin with; and no surer way to hold the right kind of a boy to the line than to let him know that the right girl has never lost faith in him. But Nan was holding forth altogether too bravelywith the boy in the case so handy. A few little reservations-a few-at this particular time, I thought, would do no harm. And so "Sh-h, Nan!" I warned.

"I won't, Nettie Trench. It's so, and you know it. I hate superior people, Nettie. Father always did, too. And you know how he liked Larry. Dear papa! One night, Nettie-I was never so surprised-mamma all at once began to cry-imagine mamma crying! She was crying for papa, who had to die, she said, before she could appreciate the gentleness and warm heart that was in him. And papa always said that no kind of people go farther to the bad than those who really think they're better than others. He used to say that such beasts, for their punishment, ought to be forced to herd by themselves."

I believed in what Nan said myself, but also, thinking of the wily woman waiting below, I decided that a little chastening of the spirit of rebellious girlhood would now be in order. So I said: "But a long record of the human race, Nan, proves that if we do not intend to try to be better than the people we happen to be with, then we ought to take care whom we are with."

"You and your sermons!" exclaimed Nan. "Nettie dear, talk with me, not at me. Oh, Nettie"-Nan threw herself on my shoulders-"I never had a chance to tell him I'm not mad with him. And I'm afraid he'll do something desperate. And if they get to fighting down here, as everybody says, he will be killed! He's that kind, Nettie he will be killed!"

"And isn't my Ned likely to be killed at all?" I said, beginning to get frightened too; and then, seeing her so tearful: "But it will be all right, dear—don't you worry."

"But, Nettie, why shouldn't a woman let a man know or give him a hint? 'What!' says mamma to me, 'would you run after him?' But why should I be afraid to let him know that I do care for him?"

"I don't know why not, Nan. It depends on the man, perhaps."

"Did you ever let Ned know you cared for him before he asked-did you, Nettie?"

She was so wistful I almost forgot Larry behind the lattice; but I caught myself in time. "I hope, Nan Wedner, you don't think I proposed to him?"that was with such dignity as I could quickly assume.

"But, Nettie"-she switched her head on my shoulder-"do you suppose Ned knew, Nettie?"

"I'm afraid," I sighed I thought of Larry listening, but I had to tell her the truth-" he would have been dull not to guess it."

"And Ned isn't dull, is he?" said Nan. "Ned dull! I guess not!" I said.

And while I stood with Nan tearful and discouraged against my shoulder, I could hear the patter of the fountain tinkling up from the patio, and the voices of men and girls, and the music of some kind of a native instrument; and the song was of home and love by a man to a girl. And do you know?—no matter what we think of their politics and so on-those men down in that country do seem to be able to put something terribly sad into their voices when they sing, and somebody somewhere has said that no man who loves but is more often sad than gay. And it made no difference-it may have been some low-built kitchen girl he was singing to, and he one of the hotel porters loafing on his job-not a mite of difference. The melody of it rose up and clutched me. And Nan clinging to meI could feel it clutching her, too. And I knew that for Larry behind the latticeit was hard work staying where he was; and as for myself—I hadn't seen my Ned in almost a year, and, thinking of Ned and

his ways, I felt all at once terribly lonesome and like crying with Nan. And then a vision of the arrogant beauty down-stairs came suddenly to my mind. But now without my being so afraid. It would be safe enough now, I thought, to have Larry and Nan meet in her presence. "Let us go down-stairs now, Nan," I said. "We can look at the dancing. That Miss Whiffle, they say, is a wonderful dancer."

"Yes, but let me look at the children again, Nettie," said Nan. "I love to see them asleep. Isn't it wonderful to you, Nettie, to think of your having children of your own-nobody else's but your own?"

"And Ned's," I said.

"Of course. You wouldn't give them up for anything, would you, Nettie, in all the world? Why, Nettie, I'd go down on my knees and scrub floors, like the old women in the office buildings, every night of my life in thankfulness to have such lovely little babies of my own!"

"Hush, Nan!" I said, thinking of Larry in hiding.

"And Larry, Nettie-wouldn't Larry love to have children of his own!"

Before she could say any more I hurried her away to look at the children, and also to give Larry time to make his escape. And after Nan had cuddled them we headed for the stairs, I wondering just how I could let Larry see us after we got there. And while descending the stairs we heard a rifle-shot, and another, and another, and then dozens of shots.

"Podesta! Podesta !" we heard everybody calling out then, and the waiters dashed from under the portales to the corner of the plaza to see what was doing. And as we hurried down-stairs we heard a voice-Larry's voice.

"This plaza is about the best-lighted place in town," Larry was saying to a group of diners. "The most exposed, but also the safest place on the defense in the city. Whatever they decide to do to us here, at least we can see them coming to do it."

The stout majordomo was standing near Larry. "Truly, that is so," he said. "And these little marble-topped tables," said Larry, "won't be bad little defenses against their. rifle fire. We can

set them up on edge between the columns of the portales. Let's get busy with the tables now."

Everybody began to clear the little tables by sweeping whatever was on them to the marble floor. The majordomo cried out: "Careful, if you please, señors!" But no one minded him, and everybody then began to pick up the marble-topped tables, Nan and I among them, and place them between the portales columns.

Larry, if he saw us, paid no attention to us; neither did he pay any attention to Carmen Whiffle when she stood at his elbow. "There's no changing nature, Nan," I said "the male in war time is a warrior first and a lover afterward."

"Would you want him not to be?" said Nan, who had dropped grabbing tables to stand off and admire Larry; and while she was at that, her mother, in a dressing-gown of a chocolate shade, came down the wide stairs.

"Mamma, there's Larry-look!" cried Nan. "And he won't pay the least attention to us!"

"Why should he?" retorted auntie. "He has his work before him. Let him do it in peace."

By this time the tables were all piled up as Larry had ordered, and half the women in the hotel were clustering around him. You would think they had a special claim on him. But he almost rudely waved them away; among them Carmen Whiffle, who retired, I was pleased to see, in some wonderment.

"Good for you, Larry!" I said; but was myself shocked a moment later when he said, with both hands in the air warning us: "Mesdames-señoras, señoritas, ladies, demoiselles-there probably isn't the least danger, but no harm in standing clear. You, Nettie," he added, when I was going to rush over to him, in my pride to let the others know who he was and I was-"you too, Nettie, same as the rest!"

"Larry Trench, why, what-" I began, and "O Larry!" began Nan

"And you, Nan-you know I'm not allowed to speak to you," said Larry. "I promised your mother I wouldn't"; but he gave her a glance which sent her trembling up against me, murmuring: "O Nettie, Nettie, I'm so glad!"