nkful Grant is away! he would have you all through the woods,
hunting for nobody knows what, and bringing you home scorched."

"Dear Mrs. Sandford," I said, "I can dance just as well, if I _am_
burnt."

"That's a delusion, Daisy. You are a woman, after all, my dear--or you
will be; and you may as well submit to the responsibility. And you may
not know it, but you have a wonderfully fine skin, my dear; it always
puts me in mind of fresh cream."

"Cream is yellow," I said.

"Not all the cream that ever _I_ saw," said Mrs. Sandford. "Daisy, you
need not laugh. You will be a queen, my dear, when you cease to be a
child. What are you going to wear to-night?"

"I don't know, ma'am; anything cool, I suppose."

"It won't matter much," Mrs. Sandford repeated.

But yet I found she cared, and it did matter, when it came to the
dressing-time. However she was satisfied with one of the embroidered
muslins my mother had sent me from Paris.

I think I see myself now, seated in the omnibus and trundling over the
plain to the cadets' dancing-rooms. The very hot, still July night
seems round me again. Lights were twinkling in the camp, and across
the plain in the houses of the professors and officers; lights above
in the sky too, myriads of them, mocking the tapers that go out so
soon. I was happy with a little flutter of expectation; quietly
enjoying meanwhile the novel loveliness of all about me, along with
the old familiar beauty of the abiding stars and dark blue sky. It was
a five minutes of great enjoyment. But all natural beauty vanished
from my thoughts when the omnibus drew up at the door of the Academic
Building. I was entering on something untried.

At first sight, when we went into the room, it burst upon me that it was
very pretty. The room was dressed with flags,--and evergreens,--and with
uniforms; and undoubtedly there is charm in colour, and a gilt button and
a gold strap do light up the otherwise sombre and heavy figures of our
Western masculine costume. The white and rosy and blue draperies and
scarfs that were floating around the forms of the ladies, were met and
set off by the grey and white of the cadets and the heavier dark blue of
the officers. I never anywhere else saw so pretty gatherings. I stood
quite enchanted with the pleasure of the eye; till to my startled
astonishment, Capt. Percival came up and asked me to dance with him. I
had not expected to dance with anybody except Preston, and Mr. Thorold,