do this morning, looking up the still river in the bright
light, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long,
low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water on
one side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. The
Parrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, are
trying,--as they are trying almost all the time,--against the face of
the high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shells
keeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air.

I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in any
other part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it was
the home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, and
Dollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange to
think that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while all
this parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on close
beside and about them.

The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing for
mischief,--the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us very
amusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they have
parades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at old
Cro' Nest,--which has to stand all the firing from the north battery,
just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made a
very careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up and
down, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they were
nearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautiful
bead," round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. The
bad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe he
would have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says,--"Well, he
rather thinks,--if she would have stood still long enough,--he would
have let her be--astonished!"

The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, is
beautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name!

We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraid
Miss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now,
how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizingly
funny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left us
I cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been a
misery of politeness.

We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the
dark, choked-up casema