, presented her or him to the veteran in the chair:

"This, my honored General, first and foremost, is Miss Mildred Prime,
daughter of a thousand earls is she, yet one _vastly_ to be desired,
though I say it who should not, for she hails from New York, which is
enough to make me hate her, whereas we've just sworn an eternal
friendship. You've only casually met her and her folks before, but _I_
can tell you all about them. You should have put Frank at the head of
your Intelligence Bureau, General. _He'd_ never find out anything, but
_I_ would. We came on the same train together all the way from Ogden."

A tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired, oval-faced girl, coloring slightly in
evident embarassment over these odd army ways, courtesied smilingly to
the General and seemed to be pleading dumbly for clemency if there had
been transgression.

"This," hurried on the voluble little woman, seizing another feminine
wrist, "is Miss Cherry Langton--Cherry Ripe we call her at home this
summer, the dearest girl that ever lived except myself, and one you'll
simply delight in--as you do in me--when you get to know her. She is, as
you have often been told and have probably forgotten, the only
good-looking member of Frank's family--his first cousin. She was moping
her heart out after all the nice young men in Denver went to the wars,
and withering on the stem until I told her she should go too, when she
blossomed and blushed with joy as you see her now, sir. Cherry, make your
manners." Cherry, whose name well described her, was only waiting for a
chance, laughing the while at the merry flow of her chaperon's words,
and, at the first break, stepped quickly forward and placed her hand
frankly in the outstretched palm of her host, then glanced eagerly over
her shoulder as though she would say: "But you must see _her_," and her
bright eyes sought and found the fourth feminine member of the group.

"And this," said Mrs. Frank Garrison, bravely, yet with a trifle less
confidence of manner, with indeed a faint symptom of hesitancy, "is Miss
Amy Lawrence," and in extending her little hand to take that of the most
retiring of the three girls, only the finger tips and thumb seemed to
touch. Miss Lawrence came quickly forward, and waiting for no
description, bowed with quiet grace and dignity to the chief and, smiling
a bit gravely, said:

"Uncle left word that he would soon return, General, but he has been gone
with Colonel Armstrong nearly an hour.