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There had been a few days in which Miss McKay, forgetting or having obtained absolution for her unguarded remarks on the promenade deck of the steamer, had begun to be seen a great deal with Miss Stanley. She had even blushingly shaken hands with big Lieutenant Lee, whose kind brown eyes were full of fun and playfulness whenever he greeted her. But it was noticed that something, all of a sudden, had occurred to mar the growing intimacy; then that the once blithe little lady was looking white and sorrowful; that she avoided Miss Stanley for two whole days, and that her blue eyes watched wistfully for some one who did not come,–“Mr. Stanley, no doubt,” was the diagnosis of the case by “Miss Mischief” and others.

Then, like a thunder-clap, came the order for Phil Stanley’s arrest, and then there were other sad faces. Miriam Stanley’s dark eyes were not only troubled, but down in their depths was a gleam of suppressed indignation that people knew not how to explain. Colonel Stanley, to whom every one had been drawn from the first, now appeared very stern and grave; the joy had vanished from his face. Mrs. McKay was flitting about the parlors tearfully thankful that “it wasn’t her boy.” Nannie had grown whiter still, and very “absent” and silent. Mr. Lee did not come at all.

Then there was startling news! An outbreak, long smouldering, had just occurred at the great reservation of the Spirit Wolf; the agent and several of his men had been massacred, their women carried away into a captivity whose horrors beggar all description, and two troops–hardly sixscore men–of Colonel Stanley’s regiment were already in pursuit. Leaving his daughter to the care of an old friend at Craney’s, and after a brief interview with his boy at barracks, the old soldier who had come eastward with such glad anticipation turned promptly back to the field of duty. He had taken the first train and was already beyond the Missouri. Almost immediately after the colonel’s departure, Mr. Lee had come to the hotel and was seen to have a brief but earnest talk with Miss Stanley on the north piazza,–a talk from which she had gone direct to her room and did not reappear for hours, while he, who usually had a genial, kindly word for every one, had turned abruptly down the north steps as though to avoid the crowded halls and piazzas, and so returned to the barracks.

But now, this lovely June morning the news from the far West is still more direful. Hundreds of savages have taken the war-path, and murder is the burden of every tale from around their reservation, but–this is the day of “last parade” and the graduating ball, and people cannot afford time to think of such grewsome matter. All the same, they note that Mr. Lee comes no more to the hotel, and a rumor is in circulation that he has begged to be relieved from duty at the Point and ordered to join his troop now in the field against hostile Indians.

Nannie McKay is looking like a pathetic shadow of her former self as she comes down-stairs to fulfil an engagement with a cadet admirer. She neglects no duty of the kind towards Willy’s friends and hers, but she is drooping and listless. Uncle Jack is worried about her; so, too, is mamma, though the latter is so wrapped up in the graduation of her boy that she has little time to think of pallid cheeks and mournful eyes. It is all arranged that they are to sail for Europe the 1st of July, and the sea air, the voyage across, the new sights and associations on the other side, will “bring her round again,” says that observant “avuncular” hopefully. He is compelled to be at his office in the city much of the time, but comes up this day as a matter of course, and has a brief chat with his graceless nephew at the guard-house. Billy’s utter lack of spirits sets Uncle Jack to thinking. The boy says he can “tell him nothing just now,” and Uncle Jack feels well assured that he has a good deal to tell. He goes in search of Lieutenant Lee, for whom he has conceived a great fancy, but the big lieutenant has gone to the city on business. In the crowded hall at the hotel he meets Miriam Stanley, and her face gives him another pound of trouble to carry.