"Save the flag! Hurrah! Pound on the piano, Eileen, and pretend it's cannon." Chord after chord reverberated through the big sunny room, punctuated by all the cavalry music she had picked up from West Point and her friends in the squadron.
"We can't get 'em up! We can't get 'em up! We can't get 'em up In the morning!" she sang, calmly watching the progress of the battle, until Selwyn disengaged himself from the _melee_ and sank breathlessly into a chair.
"All over," he said, declining further combat.

"Play the 'Star-spangled Banner,' Miss Erroll." "Boom!" crashed the chord for the sunset gun; then she played the anthem; Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute.
The party was over.
Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery and down the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange of badinage again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, he retorting in kind.
"Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy," she concluded.
"Not as dreadful as the chorus," he remarked, wincing.
"You're exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look like one now--so sheepish! I've seen Gerald attempt to avoid admonition in exactly that fashion." "How about a jolly brisk walk ?" he inquired blandly; "unless you've something on.

I suppose you have." "Yes, I have; a tea at the Fanes, a function at the Grays.

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