"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post Fort Hamilton, is it? I forget which fort he is fast there."
"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and then in Broadway, shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence's worsted-work (I've made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda) or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that I don't know which; and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or somewhere, to prosecute inquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him; she says he is wearing himself out."
The mixture of amusement, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her, and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.
"But where is your other cousin Hugh?" said Florence.
"He was not well."
"Where is your uncle?"
"He will be at home to-day, I expect; and so should I have been I meant to be there as soon as he was, but I found this morning that I was not well enough to my sorrow."
"You were not going alone!"
"Oh, no! a friend of ours was going to-day."
"I never saw anybody with so many friends, said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"