sins now fell upon the ramparts immediately under
the window. Two officers, one apparently on duty for the day, were
passing at the moment; and, as they heard their names pronounced,
stopped, looked up, and saluted the young ladies with that easy freedom
of manner, which, unmixed with either disrespect or effrontery, so
usually characterises the address of military men.

"What a contrast, by heaven!" exclaimed he who wore the badge of duty
suspended over his chest, throwing himself playfully into a theatrical
attitude, expressive at once of admiration and surprise, while his eye
glanced intelligently over the fair but dissimilar forms of the
cousins. "Venus and Psyche in the land of the Pottowatamies by all that
is magnificent! Come, Middleton, quick, out with that eternal pencil of
yours, and perform your promise."

"And what may that promise be?" asked Clara, laughingly, and without
adverting to the hyperbolical compliment of the dark-eyed officer who
had just spoken.

"You shall hear," pursued the lively captain of the guard. "While
making the tour of the ramparts just now, to visit my sentries, I saw
Middleton leaning most sentimentally against one of the boxes in front,
his notebook in one hand and his pencil in the other. Curious to
discover the subject of his abstraction, I stole cautiously behind him,
and saw that he was sketching the head of a tall and rather handsome
squaw, who, in the midst of a hundred others, was standing close to the
gateway watching the preparations of the Indian ball-players. I at once
taxed him with having lost his heart; and rallying him on his bad taste
in devoting his pencil to any thing that had a red skin, never combed
its hair, and turned its toes in while walking, pronounced his sketch
to be an absolute fright. Well, will you believe what I have to add?
The man absolutely flew into a tremendous passion with me, and swore
that she was a Venus, a Juno, a Minerva, a beauty of the first water in
short; and finished by promising, that when I could point out any woman
who was superior to her in personal attraction, he would on the instant
write no less than a dozen consecutive sonnets in her praise. I now
call upon him to fulfil his promise, or maintain the superiority of his
Indian beauty."

Before the laughing Middleton could find time to reply to the light and
unmeaning rattle of his friend, the quick low roll of a drum was heard
from the front. The signal was understood by both