"Two of them, major! Two of them! We might call them, in view of your modest estimate of army attractions, 'Miss Summers' Sacrifice' and, and——"
"Kitty's Conquest," said Harrod.
Swiftly through a tawny waste of whirling waters a great steamer ploughs its way. From towering smoke-stacks volumes of smoke stream back along the tumbling wake and settle on the low-lying shores. Breasting the torrent, we have rushed past crowded levee, past sloop, and ship, and shallop, past steamers of every class and build, ocean cruisers, river monarchs, bayou traders, swamp prowlers. Lordly up-stream packets lead or follow; churches, domes, chimneys, cotton-presses, elevators, warehouses, give way to low, one-storied, whitewashed cottages, or deep-veranda'd frame homesteads on the one side, to flat and open plantations on the other. Eastward there is naught to span the horizon but one far-reaching level of swamp or trembling prairie. Westward, two miles back from the river-bank, bold barriers of forest, dense, dark, and impenetrable, shut off the view. In front lies the eddying, swirling, boiling bosom of the Mississippi,—the winding highway to the North,—sweeping in majestic curve through shores of shining green. Behind us, nestling along the grand arcs of its doubling bend, New Orleans and Algiers, close clinging to the mighty stream that at once threatens and cajoles. The river is master here, yet dreams not of his power.
Precious freight our steamer bears this bright and balmy eve. Proud of its strength and grace, it surges ahead, rumbling in the vast caverns of its seething furnaces, panting in the depths of its powerful lungs, straining with muscles that glory in their task, hurling aside from iron-shod beak the burdened billows of the opposing river. Black as Erebus the clouds of smoke from towering chimneys, white as snow the screaming steam-jets, deep and mellow the note of signal-bell, clear, ringing, rollicking the farewell chorus of our swarthy crew. Boom! goes the roar of saucy little field-piece in parting salutation to the sun, redly sinking through the forest to our left, and then, from the lower deck, what unaccustomed sound is that? A trumpet, a cavalry trumpet sounds the final tribute to departing day, and a moment later a young officer comes springing from below and joins our group upon the hurricane-deck.
Here enjoying the scene, the gliding rush of our gallant craft, the balmy softness of the Southern air, we are seated, an almost silent party of seven. We are Mrs. Amory, Miss Summers, and Kitty; Major Vinton, Mr. Amory, Harrod, and myself. We are fellow-passengers for the evening only. The troop, men and horses both, is billeted below, and under command of its young lieutenant goes through to St. Louis, thence up the Missouri to its new sphere of duties in the far Northwest. Vinton is a passenger as far as Memphis, where escorting Mrs. Amory, he takes the train to Washington. The rest of us, Pauline, Kitty, Harrod, and I, go only up to Donaldsonville, where we arrive late at night, and take the local packet back to the city. In all the excitement and perturbation consequent upon the sudden departure of the troop; in all the hurry of preparation, requiring as it did the attention of both officers, there was no time for the interviews, the fond partings, the "sweet sorrows" incident to such occasions. An unusual thing occurred,—a bright idea struck Mr. Brandon. He proposed that the quartette should accompany the troop a short way up the river and there drink with them the stirrup-cup; and at last a proposition of Mr. Brandon's was regarded worthy of acceptance. So it happens that we are here together.
Evening comes on apace, and while Harrod is smoking somewhere forward, and our cavalrymen are paired off and slowly promenading the deck with the ladies of their love, Mrs. Amory and I are chatting quietly in the brilliant saloon, and we are talking of Mars. Her voice is soft and tremulous; her face is full of trust and peace; her eyes fondly follow him and the sweet, girlish form that hangs upon his arm as they stroll forward again after a few loving words with her.
"You have been a good friend to my boy, Mr. Brandon, and you will not forget him now on the distant frontier. It will be late in the fall before he can come East."
"So long as that! I had cherished some wild notion that we might have a double ceremony, when the major and Miss Summers are married."
"No. That would be too precipitate. She is very young yet; so is Frank for that matter, but he is thoroughly in earnest. It is not that I anticipate any change of feeling, but it is best for her sake there should be no undue haste. She will spend the time with Miss Summers until that wedding comes off, then visit relations in the North during the summer. Then 'Aunt Mary' will doubtless claim her. You know that as yet 'Aunt Mary' has had no intimation of what has been going on. Indeed, but for their sudden orders for the field, I doubt very much if the young people would have settled their outstanding differences. She is a lovely child at heart, and Frank has been a truthful and a devoted son,"—the dimmed eyes are filling now, and a tear starts slowly down the warm cheek,—"but he is impulsive impetuous, quick, and sensitive, and, sweet as Kitty is, she has no little coquetry. It will not all be smiles and sunshine, 'bread and butter and kisses,' Mr. Brandon."