but in any event you cannot keep up two establishments. Break up
the house at Scott at once, let her come out with my people and leave
the Maloneys and Barnickel--and Scott behind. Let my Braska banker be
yours for the present. A few mouths here will float you well above
water."

And though Davies declined the offer of pecuniary aid, the very night of
Mrs. Cranston's visit the agency telegraph flashed to Mira a despatch
directing her to get ready to come on with them, whereat Mira fled in
tears to Mrs. Darling,--Mira, who, it may be remembered, longed to come
and cook and bake and darn and sweep and sew and share the merest hovel
with her Percy so long as she thought it just possible that he might yet
change his mind and leave his simple village maid no fate but lonely
grief and an early grave. Mira's enthusiasm for the bliss of frontier
life fled at the contemplation of the utter isolation at the
agency,--with wild Indians and animals all around, and without Mrs.
Darling, without the lovely, cosey fireside confidences, without the
band, the hops, the sleigh-rides, not to mention the glowing devotions
of Mr. Willett.

But Mrs. Darling rose to the occasion. From having been first favorite
in Scott social circles up to the time of Mira's coming she, with Mrs.
Stone and Mrs. Flight, was struggling now for second place. She felt
constrained to remind Mira that she was now a soldier's wife, and should
share a soldier's lot, especially a lot that included furnished
quarters. Other women had gone or were going to live in the log huts,
and it would never do to have it said of her, of Almira Davies,
that she had shrunk from joining her husband at the agency when
everything--everything was provided. Everything wasn't provided, by any
means, but in the largeness of her convictions woman sometimes drifts to
breadth of statement. The interview with Mrs. Darling proved but cold
comfort to poor Mira. She went homewards through the chill gloaming with
restless heart. There was a little parcel lying on her table, securely
wrapped and sealed. The post ambulance driver brought it out from
Braska, said Katty, "an' there was no address, 'twas only to be left for
Mrs. Davies," and Katty fain would have followed her mistress into her
chamber to see it opened, but Mira closed the door before she cut the
string. It contained some exquisite double violets and a tiny note
sealed as carefully as was the box.

Before tattoo Mrs. Flight and other