"Who did you come with?"
"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York."
"Wasn't your uncle at home?"
"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring."
"But was there nobody else to do it but you?"
"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 enquiries. 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."