"How long does it take a letter to go from here to New York?"

"Five or six days, I suppose."

Miss Travers stepped to the door, briefly told the soldier there was no
answer, thanked him for waiting, and returned.

"You are not going to reply?" asked Mrs. Rayner, in amaze.

"_I_ am not; and I inferred _you_ did not intend to. Now another
question. How many days have we been here?"

"Eight or nine,--nine, it is."

"You saw me post a letter to Mr. Van Antwerp as we left the Missouri,
did you not?"

"Yes. At least I suppose so."

"I wrote again as soon as we got settled here, three days after that,
did I not?"

"You said you did," replied Mrs. Rayner, ungraciously.

"And you, Kate, when you are yourself have been prompt to declare that I
say what I mean. Very probably it may have been four days from the time
that letter from the transfer reached Wall Street to the time the next
one could get to him from here, even had I written the night we arrived.
Possibly you forget that you forbade my doing so, and sent me to bed
early. Mr. Van Antwerp has simply failed to remember that I had gone
several hundred miles farther west; and even had I written on the train
twice a day, the letters would not have reached him uninterruptedly. By
this time he is beginning to get them fast enough. And as for you, Kate,
you are quite as unjust as he. It augurs badly for my future peace;
and--I am learning two lessons here, Kate."

"What two, pray?"

"That he can be foolishly unreliable in estimating a woman."

"And the other?"

"That you may be persistently unreliable in your judgment of a man."

Verily, for a young woman with a sweet, girlish face, whom we saw but a
week agone twitching a kitten's ears and saying little or nothing, Miss
Travers was displaying unexpected fighting qualities. For a moment, Mrs.
Rayner glared at her in tremulous indignation and dismay.

"You--you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" was her eventual outbreak.

But to this there was no reply. Miss Travers moved quietly to the
door-way, turned and looked her angry sister in the eye, and said,--

"I shall give up the walk, and will go to my room. Excuse me to any
visitors this evening."

"You are not going to write to him now, when you are angry, I hope?"

"I shall not write to him until to-morrow, but when I do I shall tell
him this, Kate: that if he desire my confidence he will address his
complaints and inquiries to me. If I am old enough to