chrysalis, "how easy it is to remedy a seemingly incurable
injury."

If he didn't understand her then, he did afterwards. But he looked as if
he couldn't endure it any longer, and made for the door.

"Stop, Dr. McCurdy," says she. "You haven't heard these cows'
pedigrees."

He stopped, and said: "How long are the pedigrees?"

"Here are four generations," says Mrs. Gunning--"grandmother, mother,
daughter, and grandchild." And on she went, tracing their lineage
through blooded stock for more than half an hour. She was enthusiastic,
too, and got between the doctor and the door, and emphasized all her
points with the parasol. Her back kept ripping until I ought to have
told her, but I knew the man was too mad to look at her, and she was so
happy herself, I said, "I will let her alone."

I had forgotten all about my half-breed driver, sitting on the
parade-ground in the waiting carriage. But he was enjoying himself too,
when we climbed to the fort again, with a soldier lounging on the front
wheel.

Well, as soon as I entered the little parlor that Mrs. Gunning called
her drawing-room--ornamented with the movable knickknacks that an army
woman carries around with her, you know--I saw that Captain Markley had
asserted himself. If he hadn't asserted himself on that occasion, I do
believe Mrs. Gunning would have been done with him forever. I never saw
a man so anxious to show that he was accepted. Of course he couldn't
announce the engagement until it had been sanctioned by the girl's
foster-parents. But he put Juliana through the engaged drill like a
veteran, and she was wonderfully meek.

I suppose one British woman knows another better than an American can.
But I felt sorry for Dr. McCurdy when he saw the state of things and
took his leave, and Mrs. Gunning rubbed his defeat on the raw.

"Ah, my dear friend," says she, shaking his hand, "we see that buds will
match with buds. I could never find it in my heart to wed a bud to a
full-blown rose."

I don't doubt that the full-blown rose, as he went down the fort hill,
cursed Mrs. Gunning's cow's tail and all her cows' pedigrees. But she
looked as serene as if he had pledged the young couple's health (instead
of going off and leaving his wine half tasted), and took me to see her
chickens' cupboard.

There were shelves with rows of cans and bottles, each can or bottle
labelled "Molly," or "Lucy," or "Speckie," and so on.

"I have discovered," Mrs. Gunning says to me