said that there was the man who would win the first prize
from Mr. Jerrold,--that tall cavalry sergeant who fainted
away,--Sergeant McLeod; don't you remember, mother? Well, he did not
even get a place, and Mr. Jerrold beat him easily."

Something in her mother's eyes warned her to be guarded, and, in that
indefinable but unerring system of feminine telegraphy, called her
attention to the man sitting by the door. Looking quickly to her right,
Miss Renwick saw that he was intently regarding her. At the mention of
Fort Sibley the stranger had lowered his paper, revealing a bronzed face
clean-shaven except for the thick blonde moustache, and a pair of clear,
steady, searching blue eyes under heavy brows and lashes, and these eyes
were very deliberately yet respectfully fixed upon her own; nor were
they withdrawn in proper confusion when detected. It was Miss Renwick
whose eyes gave up the contest and returned in some sense of defeat to
her mother's face.

"What letters have you for the colonel?" asked Mrs. Maynard, coming _au
secours_.

"Three,--two of them from his devoted henchman Captain Chester, who
writes by every mail, I should imagine; and these he will go off into
some secluded nook with and come back looking blue and worried. Then
here's another, forwarded from Sibley, too. I do not know this hand.
Perhaps it is from Captain Armitage, who, they say, is to come back next
month. Poor Mr. Jerrold!"

"Why poor Mr. Jerrold?" asked Aunt Grace, with laughing interest, as she
noted the expression on her niece's pretty face.

"Because he can't bear Captain Armitage, and--"

"Now, Alice!" said her mother, reprovingly. "You must not take his view
of the captain at all. Remember what the colonel said of him--"

"Mother dear," protested Alice, laughing, "I have no doubt Captain
Armitage is the paragon of a soldier, but he is unquestionably a most
unpleasant and ungentlemanly person in his conduct to the young
officers. Mr. Hall has told me the same thing. I declare, I don't see
how they can speak to him at all, he has been so harsh and discourteous
and unjust." The color was rising in earnest now, but a warning glance
in her mother's eye seemed to check further words. There was an
instant's silence. Then Aunt Grace remarked,--

"Alice, your next-door neighbor has vanished. I think your vehemence has
frightened him."

Surely enough, the big, blue-eyed man in tweeds had disappeared. During
this brief controversy he ha