k Garrison!"
was the echo. His intimates knew that he had "put by" through economy and
self-denial about two thousand dollars, the extent of his fortune outside
of his pay. "She'll make ducks and drakes of it in the six weeks'
honeymoon," was the confident prophecy, and she probably did, for,
despite the fact that he had so recently rejoined the regiment, "Witchie"
insisted on a midwinter run to New Orleans, Savannah and Washington, and
bore her lord, but not her master, over the course in triumph. To a
student of human nature--and frailty--that union of a faded and somewhat
shopworn maid of twenty-seven to an ardent and vigorous young soldier
many moons her junior was easy to account for. One after another Witchie
Terriss had had desperate affairs with half a dozen fellows, older or
younger, in the army and was known to have been engaged to five different
men at different times, and believed to have been engaged to two
different men at one time. Asked as to this by one of her chums she was
reported to have replied: "Do you know, I believe it true; I had totally
forgotten about Ned Colston before Mr. Forman had been at the post a
week. Of course the only thing to do was to break with both and let them
start fresh." But this Mr. Colston, whose head had been somewhat cleared
by a month of breezy, healthful scouting, accepted only in part--that
part which included the break. Forman had the fresh start and a walk over
and held the trophy just two months, when it dawned upon him that
Margaret loved dancing far more than she did him--a clumsy performer, and
that she would dance night after night, the lightest, daintiest creature
in the hop room, and never have a word or a look for him who leaned in
gloomy admiration against the wall and never took his eyes off her. He
became jealous, moody, ugly-tempered and finally had the good luck to get
his _conge_ as the result of an attempt to assert himself and limit her
dances. She was blithe and radiant and fancy free when Frank Garrison
reached the post, a wee bit hipped, it was whispered, because of the
failure of a somewhat half-hearted suit of his in the far East, and the
Fairy bounded into the darkness of his life and fairly dazzled him.
Somebody had said Frank Garrison had money.

There is no need to tell of the disillusion that gradually came. Frank
found his debts mounting up and his cares increasing. She was all sympathy
and regret when he mentioned it, but--there were certai