the opinion of this social bashaw Mrs. Converse was not considered a
good partner, and, as the lady entertained very different views on that
subject and was passionately fond of dancing, she had resented not a
little the line thus drawn to her detriment. She not only loaned,
however, all he asked for, but begged to be informed if there were not
something more she could do to help entertain his visitors. Waring sent
her some lovely flowers the next week, but failed to take her out even
once at the staff german. Mrs. Cram was alternately aghast and
delighted at what she perhaps justly called his incomparable impudence.
They were coming out of church together one lovely morning during the
winter. There was a crowd in the vestibule. Street dresses were then
worn looped, yet there was a sudden sound of rip, rent, and tear, and a
portly woman gathered up the trailing skirt of a costly silken gown and
whirled with annihilation in her eyes upon the owner of the offending
foot.

"That is far too elegant a skirt to be worn unlooped, madame," said Mrs.
Cram's imperturbable escort, in his most suave and dulcet tones, lifting
a glossy silk hat and bowing profoundly. And Mrs. Cram laughed all the
way back to barracks at the recollection of the utter discomfiture in
the woman's face.

These are mere specimen bricks from the fabric which Waring had builded
in his few months of artillery service. The limits of the story are all
too contracted to admit of extended detail. So, without further
expansion, it may be said that when he drove up to town on this eventful
April day in Cram's wagon and Larkin's hat and Ferry's Hatfield clothes,
with Pierce's precious London umbrella by his side and Merton's watch
in his pocket, he was as stylish and presentable a fellow as ever issued
from a battery barrack, and Jeffers, Cram's English groom, mutely
approved the general appearance of his prime favorite among the officers
at the post, at most of whom he opened his eyes in cockney amaze, and
critically noted the skill with which Mr. Waring tooled the spirited
bays along the levee road.

Nearly a mile above the barracks, midway between the long embankment to
their left and the tall white picket fence surmounted by the olive-green
foliage of magnolias and orange-trees on the other hand, they had come
upon a series of deep mud-holes in the way, where the seepage-water from
the rapidly-rising flood was turning the road-way into a pond. Stuck
helples