"Lucky dog, that Hester!" remarked one dapper youth to another.
"Yes. They say she once saved him from the stake or something of the kind, and that he has her monogram tattooed on his arm, don't you know? Romantic, awfully."
Out on a broad veranda, from which they could see a flood of moon silver flecking the waters of the bay, Donald was asking Ah-mo many questions. How did she happen to be there? Where had she come from? Why had he not known of her arrival sooner? Did she know that Edith was to be married? Why had she left them so mysteriously and unkindly on the Muskingum the year before?
To these the girl made answer that she had come from Oswego with her kind friend, Madam Bullen, to be bridesmaid at the wedding of her dear friend, Edith Hester.
"So that is Edith's mystery!" cried Donald, who had tried in vain to find out who was to act in that capacity on the morrow.
"Possibly," assented Ah-mo, with the dear rippling laugh that had haunted the young ensign ever since he first heard it on the far-away Detroit. "And now, Mr. Hester, that—"
"Mister Hester? It was not Mister Hester on the banks of the Wisconsin, Ah-mo."
"But that was a year and more ago. Besides, you were not in uniform, then. Do you know I don't think I like you in a red coat, half so well as in buckskin?"
"If it were possible I would discard it this moment," cried Donald, "and I promise you, that after this night, I will never wear it again. But, speaking of dress, Ah-mo, while you are beautiful beyond description in this silken robe, I can't but think that you were still more so in the fawn skin and fur dress that Atoka and I helped you make in Beaver Castle."
So they talked of what had been and what was to be, and of Donald's plans for Tawtry House, until suddenly he said:—