"Miss Grace is the colonel's daughter, is she not?" I asked.
"Yes."
I was sure that the girl I had seen in the court the evening before was Grace Hetherill. This invitation looked promising. The colonel would surely come to his senses now and act like a man who knew it was the year of our Lord 1896, and not 1864. As there was to be a lady present, I asked for a bath and comb and brush, as I wished to make myself very spruce. All these I obtained, finding that the fort was not without its comforts. Then, Crothers still my escort and guide, I went to the breakfast-table.
I was not prepared for the scene of comfort, even luxury, that met me in the dining-room. Yet I was not astonished. The presence of a cultivated young woman in the year 1896 is responsible for much. It was a large apartment, decorated with horns and antlers and some fine old silver-bound drinking-cups of a past age. But I had little time for inspection. The table was set, and the company was waiting.
I seemed to pass suddenly from the position of prisoner to guest, and the transformation, in seeming at least, was complete. The colonel, with all the dignity of Kentucky good blood and the military life, saluted and introduced me to his daughter.
"My daughter, Miss Hetherill, Mr. West of New York, one of the other side."
I made my best bow. She was worthy of it. It was the girl I had seen in the court. No fainting maiden, no Mariana in the moated grange, was this, but a tall, red-cheeked girl with brown eyes, lustrous dark brown hair, and modern attire. Here was one who had seen life beyond the walls of Fort Defiance or its valley. Any fool would have known it at the first glance. In the presence of this splendid woman, who received me with so much tact and grace, I began to feel as if the father owed me no apology.