Suppose I had been there in our child's place." The Colonel put his arm over his face.
"Don't, Betty--I can't bear it," he cried.
"But you must bear it; you must go to the ball in twenty minutes." The Colonel, with bewildered eyes, looked at her as if to ask what were balls, and where?
Mrs.Fortescue said no more.

Presently they heard Anita's light step on the stairs.

She flitted into the office and looked, in her ball gown of shimmering white, as pure and sweet as one of her white doves.
"I'm ready for the ball, dad," she said, smiling and kissing the Colonel and her mother, "I am a soldier's daughter, and I can't let a little thing keep me from my duty--which is, to go to the ball." Colonel Fortescue caught her in his arms.
"What a spirit!" he cried brokenly, "You have the making of ten soldiers in you, my daughter, my little daughter!" Mrs.Fortescue rose and drew her beautiful evening cloak around her.
Colonel Fortescue noticed for the first time how pale she was, but there was a smile on her lips and the fine light of courage in her eye; it was partly from her that Anita inherited her brave spirit.
Colonel Fortescue rose, too; he could not be less brave than his wife and daughter.

Anita kissed him tenderly; a soft-hearted deserter always takes an affectionate leave of his comrades when he is about to desert.
At the ball Colonel and Mrs.Fortescue were composed, smiling, graceful; Anita was less shy, more laughing than usual.

When Broussard entered the ball-room he was greeted with a great roar of applause, and when he danced the first dance with Anita once more there was applause and something in the eyes of the smiling, handclapping crowd that brought the ever-ready color into Anita's delicately lovely face.