Betty, who was sitting on the floor, hugged her knees and rocked back and forth in glee. “So it’s all settled, is it? How many times have you seen him, Lettice?”
Lettice blushed furiously. “Nothing is settled with anybody anywhere, silly girl. I only meant that if I ever did have to live in New England, that my home training would prevent me from starving, if I should chance not to like Yankee dishes. That is all.”
“Of course it is all, Miss Innocence. Let me see; when I was your age, I had been engaged to William a year, and had all my wedding clothes ready. I shall expect an announcement when you get back from Washington.”
“It looks like you do want to be rid of me, after all. Do you suppose I want to marry a man who would be at sea half his time, and who would leave me to mourn at home while he was off, nobody knows where? No; give me one of our own domestic swains, I say.”
“It’s all very well to talk,” Betty returned, “but you’ll be a Yankee yet.” At which Lettice made a face at her, and, having finished her packing, declared that she was tired to death, and that she did miss Lutie more than ever.
“Lutie loved to pack. She would rather have the chance to handle my gowns than to eat, and that’s saying a good deal. Poor Lutie!” Lettice sighed.
The next morning she started for Washington, and it was a coincidence that one of the passengers going by the same coach was none other than Lettice’s former travelling companion, Mr. Francis Key, who at once recognized Miss Hopkins, but who had the discretion not to obtrude himself too frequently upon her attention, since it was evident to his perceptions that the young naval officer who devoted himself to the girl was quite able to entertain her. And though the way was long, the end of the journey did not seem greatly to be desired by either of the two.
“Dear, oh me, Lettice, but I certainly am glad you have come,” Patsey said, as the two girls, with their arms around each other, and chattering as fast as their tongues could run, made haste to get to the refuge of Patsey’s room, after Lettice was landed on the doorstep of Mrs. Gittings’s house in Washington. “That is a fine new spark you had dancing attendance on you,” Patsey went on, when the two had seated themselves comfortably by a window overlooking the Potomac.
“Is he not a good-looking fellow?” Lettice returned. “He is from Boston, yet he is as stanch a fighter and as eager for the war as any Marylander or Kentuckian.”
“And you like him very much?”