fficial heads, temporary, of post and martial society, and
the Cranstons with Agatha Loomis, after again going to see if they could
do anything for Mrs. Davies, and again finding her absent from home,
concluded to go over to the hop-room soon after taps, and the first
thing that met their eyes was the sight of Mira--Mrs. Davies--waltzing
down the waxed floor, and waltzing beautifully in the new step that was
coming into vogue while they were still at home, and waltzing on the
encircling arm of the appreciative Mr. Willett. Beyond doubt she was the
observed of all observers.

It had all come about in the most natural and matter-of-fact way. Mira
had persisted for full an hour in her determination not to dance, but
again and again had Willett and Sanders implored,--Willett with eyes as
eloquent as his tongue. "None of these other ladies had yet really
learned the step. Everybody longed to see it. Everybody had heard how
beautifully she danced it," and presently body after body came and
coaxed "just to show us," and so, really before she knew it, she was
again on Willett's arm, he murmuring praise and encouragement into her
pretty little pink ear, and everybody seemed to stop to watch them, and
then strove to imitate. And then Sanders implored her to give him just
one turn for the honor of the Eleventh, and then Jervis wouldn't be
denied, and Willett and Burtis came for more,--Willett again and again,
and so she danced until the last waltz died away, and her first hop in
the army had been one long, vivid triumph; Willett in his eagerness
forgetting an engagement to waltz with Mrs. Hay. "She will never forgive
me," he murmured to Almira, as he saw her home, "but," and his voice
sank lower, "I only wonder I did not forget all--but yours." And that
was one of the lovely things said to her that night she did not report
in her long, explanatory, self-exculpatory letter to Percy. It is
possibly surprising that she had sense enough not to tell it to Mrs.
Flight, whose lord was on duty as officer of the guard, and who had
accepted Almira's urgent invitation to come and spend what was left of
the night with her. Almira was timid, even afraid to be left alone. Like
two schoolgirls they chattered about the cosey fire in Almira's bedroom,
Mrs. Flight filling the young wife's ears with tales of the compliments
that had been passed upon her beauty, her grace, her dancing, her lovely
costume,--one of Aunt Almira's _modiste's_ most charmin