peace, the troops were all in
garrison.

Major Burbank was there also, with his well-drilled Light Battery of the
3rd Artillery.

My husband, being a Captain and Quartermaster, served directly under
General George H. Weeks, who was Chief Quartermaster of the Department,
and I can never forget his kindness to us both. He was one of the best
men I ever knew, in the army or out of it, and came to be one of my
dearest friends. He possessed the sturdy qualities of his Puritan
ancestry, united with the charming manners of an aristocrat.

We belonged, of course, now, with the Staff, and something, an
intangible something, seemed to have gone out of the life. The officers
were all older, and the Staff uniforms were more sombre. I missed
the white stripe of the infantry, and the yellow of the cavalry. The
shoulder-straps all had gold eagles or leaves on them, instead of
the Captains' or Lieutenants' bars. Many of the Staff officers wore
civilians' clothes, which distressed me much, and I used to tell them
that if I were Secretary of War they would not be permitted to go about
in black alpaca coats and cinnamon-brown trousers.

"What would you have us do?" said General Weeks.

"Wear white duck and brass buttons," I replied.

"Fol-de-rol!" said the fine-looking and erect Chief Quartermaster; "you
would have us be as vain as we were when we were Lieutenants?"

"You can afford to be," I answered; for, even with his threescore years,
he had retained the lines of youth, and was, in my opinion, the finest
looking man in the Staff of the Army.

But all my reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in reforming
the Staff. Evidently comfort and not looks was their motto.

One day, I accidentally caught a side view of myself in a long mirror
(long mirrors had not been very plentiful on the frontier), and was
appalled by the fact that my own lines corresponded but too well, alas!
with those of the Staff. Ah, me! were the days, then, of Lieutenants
forever past and gone? The days of suppleness and youth, the careless
gay days, when there was no thought for the future, no anxiety about
education, when the day began with a wild dash across country and ended
with a dinner and dance---were they over, then, for us all?

Major Burbank's battery of light artillery came over and enlivened the
quiet of our post occasionally with their brilliant red color. At those
times, we all went out and stood in the music pavilion to watch the