singing
its roundelay perched in a cannon's mouth.

Hamish himself stood against the wall, and for a time it may be doubted
if any one saw how very handsomely his "lovely locks" were plaited, so
did he court the shadows. Sandy noted with secret amusement how
persistently the boy's eyes followed the beautiful Miss Rush, for it was
evident that she was nineteen or twenty years of age, at least three
years older than her latest admirer.

Despite his sudden infatuation, however, Hamish was a person of
excellent good sense, and he soon saw the fatuity of this worship from
afar. "Let the ensign and the lieutenants pine to death," he
thought--then with the rough old frontier joke, "I'm saving _my_ scalp
for the Injuns." Nevertheless he was acutely glad that his hair was like
a gentleman's, and when he finally ventured out of the crowd he
secured, to his great elation, a partner for one of the contra-dances
that succeeded the minuet, for the men so greatly outnumbered the women
that this argued considerable enterprise on a newcomer's part. Hamish
had determined to dance, if with nobody but Mrs. Halsing; but there were
other girlish flowers, somewhat overshadowed by the queens of the
parterre, whom he found when his eyes had lost their dazing gloat upon
the beauty of the belle of the settlement--mere little daisies or
violets, as near half wild as himself, knowing hardly more of civilized
society than he did. Most of these were clad in bright homespun; one or
two were so very young that they found it amazing sport, and in truth so
did he, although he had the style of patronizing the enterprise, to
plunge out of the great hall and scamper across the snowy parade to a
room, emptied by the gradual exhaustion of the munitions it had
contained, and now devoted to the entertainment of the children of the
settlers, who it is needless to say had come necessarily with the elder
members of the pioneer families to participate in the gayeties of the
fort. It was a danger not to be contemplated to leave them in the wholly
deserted settlement; so, sequestered here in this big room, bare of all
but holly boughs upon the wall and a great fire and a bench or two
about the chimney corner, they added _eclat_ to the occasion of the
officers' ball by reason of the enthusiastic spirit that pervaded the
Christmas games under the direction of Corporal O'Flynn. He had been
delegated to supervise and control the juvenile contingent, being
constituted m