Aunt Clara went out and brought in a pan of dough-nuts and a pitcher of milk, which kept the young people too busy for a few minutes to talk anything but nonsense.
"If I could find a girl that could make as good dough-nuts as you can, Aunt Clara," said Tom Allen, with his mouth half-full of cake, "I would marry her tomorrow."
"Would you, indeed," cried Ellen Tyler. "Then you must learn that catching comes before hanging. I made those dough-nuts myself, young impudence, while Aunt Clara was fitting my dress to wear up in the canyon."
"Ellie, I shall certainly have to take you as my wife. You know that I have already been engaged several times. But you shall have the privilege of being my very last sweetheart. The last is best, you know, of all the game. You are second to none in the matter of dough-nuts. Please, Ellie, give me another fried cake."
"Another plate-full, you mean. I certainly shall not accept your offer, for if I did I should have nothing else to do the rest of my life but fry dough-nuts for you."
"Ellie, haven't you heard that the nearest way to a man's heart is—"
"Oh, don't say such horrid things. We all know where your heart lies, Tom, so don't bother to tell us," said Dian, with a disgusted air.
"What on earth is the matter with me," began Tom, rising in mock indignation from his chair, but the girls cried out in dismay, and John Stevens, who sat nearest the offending youth, pulled him down into his seat again, and growled at him in so low a voice that no one but Tom could hear him, "There is nothing the matter with you, only you make yourself a little too prominent." And John indicated his friend's adipose with a slight blow. Tom was so tickled with the joke that he determined to repeat it even if the girls should be more shocked than ever, but Aunt Clara came in and asked John to tell them the news of the army.
"Yes, there is really an army en route for Utah, but they will forever be en route, either to Utah," after a pause, he added under his breath, "or to hell."
"What are they coming here for?" asked Aunt Clara, again.