north, and
Almira's faithful comforters were still with her, and at dusk bustled
her over to Mrs. Darling's for change of scene and surroundings and tea
and a little music, and presently sleigh-bells were heard, and Mrs.
Flight screamed joyously at the window, "Oh, it's Mr. Willett and Mr.
Burtis with their lovely team, and they've come out for the hop!" And
before long Lieutenant Darling, accompanied by these very gentlemen,
came stamping in, and Sanders and Tommy Dot followed, and in the
firelight the little army parlor was a pretty picture as these gallants
entered and the lamps were lighted, and the gentlemen from town were
presented to Almira, and everybody thought it the proper thing to be
especially devoted to her by way of consoling her for this sudden and
heartless separation from her lord, and for nearly half an hour her
lovely face maintained its expression of pathetic and unconquerable
woe; but Willett had seated himself at the piano, and he and Sanders and
Tommy Dot began singing with inimitable drollery some of the popular
melodies of the day, and presently, "to save her life," as she declared,
Almira could not resist joining in the laughter and applause, and then
Willett began telling of the new step they were dancing in the East,--he
had been home just long enough to attend a few parties,--and while Tommy
Dot played a waltz he essayed to teach it to Mrs. Darling,--a charming
partner ordinarily, but still she did not seem to catch the idea, and
Mrs. Flight was even less successful. Mira looked on with sparkling eyes
and new and uncontrollable eagerness. It was the very step she had
danced with the aides-de-camp in Chicago the previous September,--almost
the same that she had danced time and again with Mr. Powlett at Urbana,
and not a lady at Fort Scott had yet learned it. At last Sanders
spoke,--

"Why, surely it is the glide step you were telling us about, Mrs.
Davies." And then Willett implored her to try it with him, and how could
she refuse? This was not a ball or party, it was only a dancing lesson;
and somehow, all in a moment, she was floating around that little parlor
on Willett's sustaining arm in long, graceful, gliding steps that seemed
admirably adapted to his, and Willett's face glowed with delight and
hers with pardonable triumph, for was she not showing the belles of the
army the latest thing out in the ball-rooms of fashionable society? And
Sanders and Darling applauded enthusiastically, a