or two. They think he
can't appreciate their real worth, and that he deserves what he gets if
some other chap walks away with them. Now, I'm not going to sit still
on my perch and see anything else walking off with you."

I couldn't help laughing. "I'll call for help if I think there's any
danger," said I; "but I can't promise more than that. I didn't come
over to America to pick up a husband."

He looked at me rather queerly when I said that, almost as if he
thought I had come for that express purpose, and was trying to conceal
it. But, of course, he couldn't be so horrid as to suppose such a thing
really, and I must have imagined the strange expression. If he only
knew, I came away so that another girl might be sure to get a husband,
and I'm not allowed to go back until he has been got.

"They're just growing around on blackberry bushes and in strawberry
patches for you to pick and choose," said Potter, "and that's what
worries me. I'm a wildly jealous fellow. I've got two month's leave so
as to be with you at Newport, and I tell you I shall see a bright,
beautiful crimson, if too many dudes come fooling around the shanty.
Say, won't you just _play_ we're engaged, anyhow, and see how you like
it?"

But now I was really cross, and wouldn't hear a word more of such
nonsense, so I jumped up, and he had to scramble up, too.

"If you've really proposed--which I doubt--" said I, "you must please
understand that you've been formally refused. But I forgive you because
I believe you must have been chaffing, and because it's my first
proposal; so at all events I can't die without having had at least one.
Now, do be sensible and take me back, or I shall have to find my way
alone,--or else ask a strange cadet to pilot me."

That threat found a vulnerable spot; and he was not half bad on the way
home--perhaps no worse than the name of the Walk allowed.

I was a good deal excited about the ball, as it was my very first.
Sally Woodburn had looked at my things, and told me what to bring. Not
that it was a hard choice, for I have only four frocks with me, in
which I could go to a dance. The one Sally wanted me to wear at West
Point is a little white thing, of embroidered India muslin. Thompson
made it after one of Vic's, and it is a rag compared to Sally's and
Mrs. Ess Kay's gorgeous things. But when Sally had done my hair in a
new way, (they had left Louise behind, as there was no room for her),
and fastened round my throat