recently
killed and scalped, as has been stated, was now almost daily
expected. At length he came, and soon afterwards Captain Headley,
duly commissioned to perform the service, in the absence of a
clergyman, married them, Ronayne assisting as groomsman, and Mrs.
Ronayne--then Maria Heywood--as bridesmaid. This was two years
previous to the marriage of the Virginian himself, and the occasion
on which he first met her whom he subsequently so fervently adored.

It was no privation to Mrs. Elmsley to forsake the almost luxurious
ease of her father's house for the more sober accommodation of her
husband's barrack-rooms. True, these were comfortably furnished,
but still they had that primness which belongs ever to the quarters
of a soldier; but from the moment of casting her destiny, she had
determined in every sense to be a soldier's wife, and to inure
herself from the first to the plainness incident to the condition.
All she had transferred to the fort was her music and her books;
and if at any moment caprice or inclination led her to desire a
change, it was but to get up a little party, such as their limited
social circle would permit, and transfer the amusements of the day
to her father's more inviting mansion, where the servants had from
herself learned all the art of management. Lively in disposition
in the extreme, Mrs. Elmsley loved to promote the comfort of others;
and as her husband possessed an equally happy temperament, they
contributed not a little to enliven the circle of which, in point
of gaiety, they might be said to be the centre.

The owner of the establishment himself--Mr. McKenzie--was fond of
good living, and having arrived at an age when continued prosperity
permitted a relaxation from the toils of the earlier and cooler
portions of the day, loved to indulge after dinner in a large
arm-chair, placed in a veranda that overlooked the fort and country
around, and where the light air from the lake, waving through the
branches of the thin trees, swept with refreshing coolness along
the broad corridor. He generally smoked the fragrant herbs of the
Indians, mixed with tobacco, and sipped the delicious clarets with
which his cellar was stocked, and which he kept, not for sale or
barter, but for the exclusive use of himself and friends.

Immediately after Winnebeg had left Captain Headley, he made his
way to the mansion of Mr. McKenzie, whom he found, as usual, sitting
in his veranda, enjoying his pipe and