"So you are from New Orleans, Col. Edmunds," remarked Mrs. Camford. "I do not recollect of ever having met you there; but to see any person from our former home, though personally strangers, affords us pleasure and gratification."
"I have only resided in New Orleans about six months, madam," returned Col. Edmunds; "the most of my life has been spent in camp and field."
"My husband is a soldier," said Mrs. Edmunds, "and we are now on our way to the Indian frontier."
"Indeed! and how do you think you will relish frontier life?" asked Mrs. Camford.
"O, I shall be contented anywhere with my husband!"
"Just married, madam, and desperately in love yet," said the colonel. "Always lived in the city, and thought it the greatest piece of audacity in the world when I informed her I was going to stop at the residence of a private gentleman with whom I was not in the least acquainted, to bait my mules and get dinner. Not a bit acquainted with the Texan elephant, you see, madam."
"Heaven save me, Samuel! do people in this country associate with elephants?" exclaimed the bride, with the prettiest display of horrified surprise.
"To be sure; I had one for a bed-fellow six or eight months when I first came out here," returned the husband, with perfect serenity.
"O, my soul, I hope I shall never see one!" said the young wife, nestling closer to her husband's side.
The colonel laughed heartily, and all joined in his merriment.