"Oh, yes!" said Harriet, almost afraid to speak lest she should laugh.
"Will you favour me with your name, sir?" pursued the major.
Mr. Thomson gave it, much amused at the turn that things had taken. The major, after admiring the name, said he should always remember it with esteem, and regretted that his having to set out for Plattsburgh early on the following morning would, for the present, prevent their farther acquaintance. He then made sundry other acknowledgments to Harriet for all the honours she had done him that evening, including her forgiveness of his "letting her dance without him,"—bowed to Caroline, who had just approached with Mr. Harford; and, going up to Miss Clements, he thanked her for her conversation, and finally took his departure. The girls did not laugh till he was entirely out of the room, though Harriet remarked that he walked edgeways, which she had not observed when he was first brought up to her; her fancy being then excited, and her perception blinded by the glitter of his two epaulets.
"Well, Miss Darnel," said Mr. Wilson, who had just joined them, "how do you like your field-officer?"
"Need you ask me?" replied Harriet. "In future I shall hate the sight of two silver epaulets."
"And I of one gold one," added Caroline.
"I will not trust you," said Mr. Thomson, with a smile.
"We shall see," said Mr. Wilson.
"Well, young ladies," observed Miss Clements, "you may at least deduce one moral from the events of the evening. You find that it is possible for officers to be extremely annoying, and to deport themselves in a manner that you would consider intolerable in citizens."
"It is intolerable in them, aunt," replied Harriet, "particularly when they are stiff and ungainly in all their movements, and dance shockingly."