I have swallowed within the last forty-eight
hours."

"Well, gentlemen," said Mrs. Headley, with a playfulness extraordinary
for the occasion, but which was induced solely by a design to set
the minds of her friends at ease, by impressing them with a belief
that her unconcern was greater, than it really was, "while I prepare
the feast, go you out into what highways and byways are left to us
and invite our friends. Uncle, you have not seen Mrs. Elmsley since
she was a young, clashing, and unmarried belle. She will be delighted
to meet with you. Tell her I will take no denial--both herself and
husband must attend. We shall dine at five, becoming fashionable
as we stand on the brink of the grave; and by the way, Headley,
all these troubles have made me quite forget it, but this is the
anniversary not only of my birth but wedding day."

"God bless you!" said her husband, tenderly embracing her, "and
grant of his great mercy that you may see many returns of the day
under far brighter and more auspicious circumstances!"

CHAPTER XIX.

It was a curious sight--one that could only have been witnessed in
a military community, used to scenes of excitement and ever prepared
for danger--to see under the roof of the commanding officer of Fort
Dearborn, not only men but delicate and educated and highly
accomplished women, partaking, with seeming unconcern, of a meal
which each felt might be the last but one they were fated to taste
on earth, and as it were with the sword of Damocles suspended over
their heads. There was an evident desire to banish from the mind
any thought of the morrow--to sustain each other, yet with the
conviction strong at their hearts that none of them would ever
live to see Fort Wayne. They, nevertheless, talked seriously and
deprecatingly of the change they would find between the two
quarters--the one just overtopping the wild flats of Ohio, like a
solitary oasis in the desert; the other, that which they were about
to leave--rich in rides and drives, offering every facility and
amusement to the lover of the gun and of the rod--to those whose
taste led them to prefer rowing over the comparatively tiny waters
of the Chicago, or sailing along the broad expanse of the noble
Michigan. But they could not wholly succeed in cheating themselves
into temporary forgetfulness of the much that was to intervene
before that change could be effected. Now and then there would be
a painful pause in the conversation;