"I don't mean that, Fred, though, if you don't want to make talk, you
must make yourself agreeable. But you're too attentive to Mrs.
Wittleday."

"By George," responded the lieutenant, eagerly, "how can I help it?
She's divine!"

"A great many others think so, too, Fred--I do myself--but they don't
make it so plagued evident on short acquaintance. Behave yourself,
now--your eyesight is good--sit down and play the agreeable to some old
lady, and look at Mrs. Wittleday across the room, as often as you like."

The lieutenant was young; his face was not under good control, and he
had no whiskers, and very little mustache to hide it, so, although he
obeyed the order of his superior, it was with a visage so mournful that
the major imagined, when once or twice he caught Mrs. Wittleday's eye,
that that handsome lady was suffering from restrained laughter.

Humorous as the affair had seemed to the major before, he could not
endure to have his preserver's sorrow the cause of merriment in any one
else; so, deputing Parson Fisher to make their excuse to the hostess
when it became possible to penetrate the crowd which had slowly
surrounded her, the major took his friend's arm and returned to the
cottage.

"Major!" exclaimed the subaltern, "I--I half wish I'd let that Indian
catch you; then you wouldn't have spoiled the pleasantest evening I ever
had--ever _began_ to have, I should say."