But here was a thing all the world might know. Truscott's telegram had reached her the evening before, saying that the three ladies, escorted by Lieutenant Gleason, would arrive at such a time, and that Mrs. Truscott and Miss Sanford would gladly accept her offer. The average woman could hardly restrain herself from going out and seeking some one to whom to tell the interesting news. Few pleasures in life are keener than the bliss of being able to convey unexpected tidings,—when they are welcome,—but Mrs. Stannard knew that the ladies of the regiment with whom she felt at all intimate were over at the hop-room. She had all a woman's eagerness to tell the news, but—she was loyal to the —th, and would not even in so little a thing let others be the bearers. That Mrs. Stannard was a woman capable of deeds of heroism we deduce from the simple fact that she went to bed that night without having breathed the story to a soul. She had a strong impulse to tell her cook and housemaid,—old and reliable followers of her fortunes,—but she well knew that those amiable domestics would be clattering up and down the back yards all the evening, and the news would surprise nobody when she came to tell it next day. She was too true a woman to want to part with such a pleasure. Then she had—ah! must it be confessed?—a little mischievous desire of her own to see how Mrs. Turner would take it, for those who knew Mrs. Turner best were given to the belief that she would far rather have the attention of the masculine element of the garrison concentrated upon herself than shared with such undoubted rivals as these would be; and so, with perfect truth, Mrs. Stannard's reassurance took the form of these words:
"You see I could not make up my mind to let any one know until I had told you, and I've been expecting you all the morning,"—and Mrs. Turner was charmed. "But," said Mrs. Stannard, "tell me how you heard it. I thought no one knew it but myself."
"Oh! Mr. Gleason telegraphed as a matter of course, to announce that he was escorting these ladies. It was quite a feather in his cap to be able to show the commanding officer here that Captain Truscott intrusts to him the duty of guarding anything so precious. When you get to know Mr. Gleason better you'll appreciate that," said Mrs. Turner, with a pout. "Captain Turner can't bear him, and dislikes to have me notice him at all; and what I wonder at is his escorting them. Why is he not with his company? And where is Mr. Ray? If the board has adjourned, I should suppose that Mr. Gleason would be on duty with his men,—he is Truscott's first lieutenant, you know,—and that Mr. Ray would be rushing through to catch his company. Why isn't he escorting them I wonder? Perhaps Captain Truscott had reasons of his own for not permitting that,—Ray was smitten with her, I don't care what Mrs. Raymond says. Have you heard where Mr. Ray is?"
"Not a word. I wish I knew," said Mrs. Stannard, wistfully.
"Have you—have you heard anything about his being in any trouble, in anything likely to keep him from going with the regiment?" asked Mrs. Turner, hesitatingly, yet watching closely Mrs. Stannard's face.
"Nothing in the least that is anything more than a very improbable story, and one that I have too little faith in to repeat. Tell me what news you have from the captain." And Mrs. Turner knew 'twas useless to ask questions. She hurried through her visit, and tripped eagerly away up the row to carry the news throughout the garrison, meeting Mrs. Whaling coming down, and the latter had the start.
And so, before the setting of a second sun, Grace Truscott was once more in garrison, and Miss Sanford, with quietly observant eyes, was forming her first impressions of army life in the far West, and welcoming with sweet and gracious manner the ladies, who could not resist their hospitable impulse to gather on Mrs. Stannard's piazza and greet the new-comers as soon as they had removed the dust and cinders of railway travel, and in the bewildering freshness of their New York costumes reappeared on the parlor floor.
That evening, of course, they held quite a levee. The band played delightfully upon the parade, welcoming back to the frontier the colonel's daughter, and wishing, many of them, that old Catnip, too, had come, for he was very thoughtful and kind to his men, and they were realizing that it is no fun to be musicians for somebody else's regiment. Many officers and ladies called, and Mrs. Stannard's pleasant parlor was filled from early until late. One man appeared there before anybody else, accepted an invitation to join them at dinner and stayed until after eleven: this was Mr. Gleason.
The sunshine of Mrs. Stannard's bonny face was something the —th were prone to speak of very often, perhaps too often to suit other ladies, whose visages on the domestic side were not infrequently clouded. Just as it is an unsafe thing to speak in presence of some mothers of the grace or beauty or behavior of other children than their own, so it is simply idiotic to talk of Mrs. So-and-so's sweet manners or sweeter face to Mrs. Vinaigre, who is said, at times, to be snappish. It may be far from your intention to institute comparisons or to refer, by inference, to graces which are lacking in the lady to whom you speak, but there is nothing surer in life than that you get the credit of it in the fullest sense, and that, most unwittingly, you have affronted a woman in a way the meekest Christian of her sex will find it hard to forgive; she will never forget it. Mrs. Stannard's smile was sweetness itself; her eyes smiled quite as much as her mouth, and her very soul seemed to beam through the winsome, winning beauty of her face. All the young officers looked up to her with something akin to worship; all the elders spoke of Mrs. Stannard as the perfection of an army wife; even her closest friends and acquaintances could find no one trait to speak of openly as a fault. The nearest approach to such a thing was Mrs. Turner's exasperated and petulant outbreak when her patient lord had ventured, in presence of several of her coterie, to speak once too often of that lovely smile. "Merciful powers! Captain Turner. Any woman with Mrs. Stannard's teeth could afford to smile from morning till night; but it's all teeth!" But even Mrs. Turner knew better. It was a smile born of genuine goodness, of charity, of loving-kindness, and of a spiritual grace that made Mrs. Stannard marked among her associates. In all the regiment no woman was so looked up to and loved as she.
Grace Truscott had known her well by reputation, though this was their first meeting. It seemed not a little strange to Miss Sanford that they should be going thus suddenly and unceremoniously to be the guests of a lady whom neither of them had ever seen, but "'tis the way we have in the Army," was the laughing response when she ventured to speak of it, and any hesitancy or embarrassment she might have felt vanished at the instant when their hostess appeared on the piazza and both her hands were outstretched in welcome. "Did you ever see a lovelier expression in a woman's face?" was her first impulsive exclamation when she and Grace were shown to their rooms. Yet, once her guests were up-stairs and out of the way, Mrs. Stannard's brow clouded not a little as she descended to the piazza, where she had left Mr. Gleason superintending the unloading of trunks, boxes, and other baggage, and giving directions about the distribution of this thing or that quite as though "one of the family." She had never liked him; the major cordially hated him; she knew that Captain Truscott could not possibly feel any friendship for such a man, and yet here he was, the escort of Mrs. Truscott and Miss Sanford on their journey. They were her guests, and therefore she had to be unusually civil to him. One or two officers came up to speak to him as he stood at the little gate, and the post adjutant invited him to send his traps to his quarters, where a room was ready. Gleason looked around at Mrs. Stannard and remarked, "Well, I'm much obliged, but you see I'm rather bound as yet to our ladies," and plainly intimated that he hoped Mrs. Stannard would offer him the spare room on the parlor floor, but Mrs. Stannard did nothing of the kind; and, not very gracefully, he availed himself of the young infantryman's courtesy. The baggage was all in by this time, and there was no need of his prolonging his stay. Mrs. Stannard, of course, announced that they expected the pleasure of his company at dinner at six, and asked him to come in and rest, unless he preferred to go at once and dress. Gleason concluded it best to go, but, in the hearing and presence of the garrison officers who were standing near, begged Mrs. Stannard to explain to the ladies that he had to report to the commanding officer, and would she please say to Miss Sanford that he would call at five?