ibly as a result of recent conference with Flint, and had
bidden the servant say she'd wait until Miss Flower could come down, and
so sailed on into the parlor, intent on seeing all she could of both the
house and its inmates. But not a soul appeared. Mrs. Hay was watching
over her sleeping husband, whose slow recovery Flint was noting with
unimpatient eye. Voices low, yet eager, could be heard aloft in
Nanette's room. The servant, when she came down, had returned without a
word to the inner regions about the kitchen, and Mrs. Wilkins's wait
became a long one. At last the domestic came rustling through the lower
floor again, and Mrs. Wilkins hailed. Both were Irish, but one was the
wife of an officer and long a power, if not indeed a terror, in the
regiment. The other feared the quartermaster's wife as little as Mrs.
Wilkins feared the colonel's, and, when ordered to stand and say why she
brought no answer from Miss Flower, declined to stand, but decidedly
said she brought none because there was none.

"Did ye tell her I'd wait?" said Mrs. Wilkins.

"I did," said Miss McGrath, "an' she said 'Let her,' an' so I did." Then
in came Mrs. Hay imploring hush, and, with rage in her Hibernian heart,
the consort of the quartermaster came away.

There was not one woman in all Fort Frayne, therefore, to approve the
major's action in permitting this wild girl to visit the wilder Indian
patient. Mrs. Hay knew nothing of it because Nanette well understood
that there would be lodged objection that she dare not disregard--her
uncle's will. One other girl there was, that night at Frayne, who marked
her going and sought to follow and was recalled, restrained at the very
threshold by the sound of a beloved voice softly, in the Sioux tongue,
calling her name. One other girl there was who knew not of her going,
who shrank from thought of meeting her at any time,--in any place,--and
yet was destined to an encounter fateful in its results in every way.

Just as tattoo was sounding on the infantry bugle, Esther Dade sat
reading fairy stories at the children's bedside in the quarters of
Sergeant Foster, of her father's company. There had been Thanksgiving
dinner with Mrs. Ray, an Amazonian feast since all their lords were
still away on service, and Sandy Ray and Billy, Jr., were perhaps too
young to count. Dinner was all over by eight o'clock, and, despite some
merry games, the youngsters' eyes were showing symptoms of the sandman's
coming,