"But he is away down towards the end of his class, and so, of course, will have to go out upon the Plains," she said, with a little sigh.
"What will you do then?" asked Lottie, quickly, a bright thought striking her. "You surely will not exchange your elegant city home for barracks in some remote fort, where you may be scalped any night?"
"I surely will," said the vivacious young lady; "and if you ever become half as much in love as I am, it won't seem a bit strange."
"But what do your parents say to all this?"
"O, well, of course they would much prefer that I should marry and settle in New York. But then, you know, mother always had a great admiration for the army, and it's quite the thing, in fashionable life, to marry into the army and navy. Why, bless you, Lottie, nearly all the ladies on the post have seen the roughest times imaginable on the frontier, and they come from as good families, and very many of them have left as good homes as mine."
"But how are you going to live on a lieutenant's pay? I have known you to spend more than that on your own dress in a single year."
"What are dresses compared with Lieutenant Ransom? I can learn to economize as well as the rest of them. You can't have everything, Lottie. You know what an officer's rank is. It gives him the entree into the best society of the land, and often opens the way for the most brilliant career. These things reconcile father and mother to it, but I look at the man himself. He's just splendid! Come, we'll go over to the hall, and I will introduce you, and let you dance with him once,—only once, you incorrigible flirt, or you will steal him away from me after all. By the way, who was that handsome man who drove? I fear you bewitched him coming over the mountain, from the way his eyes followed you."
"How does he compare with your Lieutenant Ransom?" asked Lottie.
"No one can compare with him. But why do you ask? Is there anything serious?"
"Will you think so when I tell you that he enters, next summer, on the life of a home missionary on the Western frontier?"