pon Mrs. Stannard late in the
afternoon, choking with laughter, to describe her sensations in striving
to be proper and decorous until the venerable black silk had whisked
itself off out of hearing. Three days after the --th had gone the band
arrived from Hays. Mr. Billings had spent two days at the post in seeing
his men comfortably established and in turning over property to the
infantry officer designated to be post adjutant, and then he had taken
stage to Laramie and gone in chase. That evening, after the band had
played delightfully an hour or two on the parade, the officers suggested
an informal dance; their own ladies went readily, and Mrs. Turner
decided to go and see the hop-room, and once there it seemed so poky to
come away without a waltz or two. "The floor was lovely, so much better
than ours at Hays, and really, several of the garrison officers danced
remarkably well." So we infer Mrs. Turner had satisfied herself by
personal experiment on that score. Very properly, the informal hops
became regular features of the garrison life, and several ladies of the
--th, "grass-widowed" for the summer, were speedily induced to join in
these modulated gayeties. What with the band, the influx of some half a
dozen new ladies, and the constant arrival of officers _en route_ to the
front, the garrison not unnaturally remarked that Russell was jollier
now that the --th had gone than it was before.

And now Mrs. Truscott and the very interesting Miss Sanford were coming.
This was indeed news! They were to take quarters next to the Stannards,
and be Mrs. Stannard's guests until the furniture arrived and all was
made ready for them. Truscott's troop, with Webb's, was coming along by
rail fast as they could travel in the heavy freight-trains to which they
were assigned, and the ladies, Mrs. Webb included, were being escorted
on the express direct to Cheyenne by Lieutenant Gleason, who had joined
the party as they passed through Kansas City, and who had, doubtless,
made himself especially agreeable to the young and lovely Mrs. Truscott,
of whom he had heard so much, and to her friend, the heiress from New
Jersey. These were details of which Mrs. Turner was in ignorance when
she came in to surprise Mrs. Stannard with the news, and, after her
first astonishment, Mrs. Turner's sensations were not those of unmixed
delight. A whole day, it seemed, had the major's wife been in possession
of the tidings and had not imparted them to her