hey _say_ he's very quick and
irascible; real peppery, you know; but I suppose that is because they
bother him a good deal."

"Mr. Billings has a very nervous temperament I know," replied Mrs.
Stannard, "but we never thought him ill-tempered at Fort Gaines, and
certainly Captain Truscott thinks all the world of him. They correspond
constantly, and only last evening he showed me a letter just received
from the captain."

"Did he?" said Mrs. Turner, with sudden interest. "What did he say about
Grace?"

"About Mrs. Truscott?" said Mrs. Stannard, smilingly. "He said a good
deal about her. She was so bright and well and so pleased with West
Point, and they had such lovely quarters, looking right out on the plain
where they could see everything that was going on, and Miss Sanford was
visiting them----"

"What Miss Sanford?" asked Mrs. Turner, with that feminine impetuosity
which is born of an incredulity as to any one's being able to convey
information in one's own time and way.

"Miss Marion Sanford. She was a classmate of Mrs. Truscott's in their
school-days, and belongs to a wealthy New Jersey family, Mr. Billings
says."

"Oh, _I_ know!" said Mrs. Raymond. "She's that handsome girl in the
album that Grace had at Sandy, don't you know? with the Worth dress and
the something or other the matter with her forehead,--a burn or a
birth-mark,--wears her hair so low over it. Don't you know? Grace told
us she had such a sad history,--her mother died when she was sixteen and
her father married again, and she has her mother's fortune and had gone
abroad. She was travelling with the Zabriskies and was presented at
court last year, and the Prince of Wales said something or other about
her. Don't you know? we read it in the New York something as we were
coming out on the Kansas Pacific last fall. My! Just think of her at
West Point! What a catch!" And Mrs. Raymond paused, breathless with
admiration, not with effort. Talking fatigued her far less than silence.

"Yes, Mrs. Raymond, that is the very one, I believe," continued Mrs.
Stannard in her pleasant tones, as soon as the lady came to a full stop.
"Mr. Billings says that he has heard that her father married a very
unpleasant woman the last time, and that 'twas said he would be----"

"What! Mr. Billings said that? Oh, Mrs. Stannard, how rejoiced I am to
hear it! Captain Turner tried to make me believe that he was another
Truscott in his horror of gossip. Now, won't I crow ove