ould still
be resolved to come out and join me here, an opportunity for your safe
conduct will be offered you this autumn which may never occur again. Our
senior captain--Captain Neville, Company A--has been absent on leave for
several months. So he did not come out here with the regiment. His leave
expires on the 30th of November. He will be obliged to start in the
latter part of October in order to have time enough to accomplish the
tedious journey by wagon from Leavenworth to Fort Farthermost, which is,
as I believe I told you, in the southern part of the Indian Reserve,
bordering on Texas. He is to bring his wife with him.

"But our colonel thinks it is I who want you, and, moreover, I who need
you; for he says that, next to a wife, a sister is the best safeguard a
young officer can have out in these frontier forts, and he gave me the
address of Captain Neville and advised me to write to him and ask him
and his wife to take charge of my sister on the route.

"And then, dear, he went further than that. He took my letter after I
had written it, and inclosed it in one from himself. So now, my dear,
all you have to do is to go to Washington, call on Mrs. Neville, at
Brown's Hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue, and send up your card. She will
expect you. Then you must hold yourself in readiness to start when the
captain and his wife do."

Cora had no time to indulge in reverie. She must be up and doing.

Her luggage had long been stored in the freight house of the North End
railway station, and her traveling bags had been packed the day before.
The servants knew she was going out to join her brother, though they did
not know that her grandfather had discarded her. She had very little to
do for herself on that day, but she resolved to do all that she could
for the comfort of her grandfather before she should leave the house
forever.

So she went and ordered the dinner--just such a dinner as she knew he
would like. Then she called old John to her presence and directed him to
have the parlor prepared for his master just as carefully as if she
herself were on the spot to see it done; to have the fire bright; the
hearth clean; the lamps trimmed and lighted; the shutters closed and the
curtains drawn; the easy chair, with dressing gown and slippers, before
the fire, and, lastly, a jug of hot punch on the hearth.

Old John promised faithfully to perform all these duties. Then Cora went
and wrote two letters.

One to her brother