“Well, Mr Hancock,” rejoined the infantry officer, a gentleman of sober inclinings, “I’m not given to betting; but I’d lay a big wager you won’t say that, after you have seen Louise Poindexter—that is, if you speak your mind.”
“Pshaw, Sloman! don’t you be alarmed about me. I’ve been too often under the fire of bright eyes to have any fear of them.”
“None so bright as hers.”
“Deuce take it! you make a fellow fall in love with this lady without having set eyes upon her. She must be something extraordinary—incomparable.”
“She was both, when I last saw her.”
“How long ago was that?”
“The Lafourche ball? Let me see—about eighteen months. Just after we got back from Mexico. She was then ‘coming out’ as society styles it:—
“A new star in the firmament, to light and glory born!”
“Eighteen months is a long time,” sagely remarked Crossman—“a long time for an unmarried maiden—especially among Creoles, where they often get spliced at twelve, instead of ‘sweet sixteen.’ Her beauty may have lost some of its bloom?”
“I believe not a bit. I should have called to see; only I knew they were in the middle of their ‘plenishing,’ and mightn’t desire to be visited. But the major has been to Casa del Corvo, and brought back such a report about Miss Poindexter’s beauty as almost got him into a scrape with the lady commanding the post.”