"How d'ye do again," said that lady. "How d'ye do, Mr. Trueman, and Mr. McLean—and, as I'm alive!—Mr. Bouché! I suppose two of you have come for me. I'm so broad, you think one wouldn't hear what the other was saying, and you could both fool me to your heart's content."

There was a laugh and a protest (very honest, so far as the coming for her was concerned), and then the young people turned away, and Mrs. Congressman went to her much coveted repose.

"She fulfils her destiny," said Mr. Bouché, as he placed himself by Rose. "The only possible use of a chaperon is to go to sleep."

XLIX
FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES

When feelings were young, and the world was new.

—Pringle.

There is no need to describe that walk, nor the many that followed it. Anybody who has been a girl—or had care of a girl—at West Point, knows without telling; though doubtless the walks vary according to the girl. But hither and thither, then as now, went Peace and War, in endless new combinations. Down among the grey rocks and green mosses of Flirtation, where the tide flowed by as softly as the minutes, and all the pretty whispers sounded true. Or up on the old fort; green enough once, but in these days pathetic as well as lovely in its helpless decline, and where much history might have been talked, and was not. Kosciusko's garden, Fort Clinton, even the Officer's Row—what tales they might tell, and are silent.

I must do Mrs. Ironwood the justice to say, that she did not fulfil her destiny after that night, so far as it involved going to sleep when she should be on duty. And she did the duty well, as befits long habit. Always accidentally on hand; keen-eyed, though taking no notice; interfering when she must, in a way that was wholly pleasant—and unmanageable. The two girls, so unlearned in the world, could not have had a more wisely careful friend. Violet never guessed how it was that she was generally free to walk with Mr. Trueman, nor why Mr. Clinker always fell to the lot of Mrs. Ironwood herself. "She must be very fond of him," thought the girls. And Magnus was careful, too, in a way, and would by no means present everybody he knew to his two young sisters.

So within that twofold invisible fence Violet and Rose moved joyously on, and had—as they wrote home—"the very loveliest time that girls could."

And it became plain to lynx-eyed Mrs. Congressman, that Magnus soon ceased to be the only grey figure on the horizon. His walks with other girls were borne meekly; and the days when he was on guard called forth less lamentation. In short (in the prettiest sort of way) the cadet fever had claimed our two young Westerners. As how should it not, when they were in such demand? Men did not stand round them to see "what those girls would do next," the poorest sort of a compliment; but came for the real liking and appreciation of the fair womanliness, of which even faulty men have an idea—or an ideal. Then fresh common sense is very pleasant when you find it; and if Rose was thought too sensible by some—or too sedate, Violet was as full of fun and frolic as any young, unspoiled nature ought to be; so they set each other off. But the fun was not pointed with slang, nor did the frolic show out in shrieks of laughter, or in familiar ways. It never occurred to either of them that it was witty to say "Get out!" or ladylike to beg for buttons and buckles. Or interesting, to give a kiss to some man who was unmannerly enough to ask it. But nobody dared that of them.