her long journey she was looking dangerously pretty, as Captain Rayner
glanced for a moment from the baby's wondering eyes, took in the picture
like an instantaneous photograph, and then looked again into Mrs.
Rayner's smiling face.

"You were wise in providing against possibilities as you did, Kate," he
said, with a significant nod of the head. "There are as many as a dozen
of them,--or at least there will be when the ----th gets back from the
field. Stannard is out yet with his battalion."

"Oh, yes: we saw them at a station east of here. They looked frozen to
death; and there _are_ ever so many of the soldiers frozen. The
baggage-car is full of them. Didn't you know it?"

"Not a word of it. We have been here for three mortal hours waiting at
the station, and any telegrams must have been sent right out to the
fort. The colonel is there, and he would have all arrangements made.
Here, Graham! Foster! Mrs. Rayner says there are a lot of frozen
cavalrymen forward in the baggage-car. Run ahead and see what is
necessary, will you? I'll be there in a minute, as soon as we've got
these ladies off the train."

Two of the young gentlemen who had been hovering around Miss Travers
took themselves off without a moment's delay. The others remained to
help their senior officer. Out into the whirling eddies of snow,
bundling them up in the big, warm capes of their regulation overcoats,
the officers half led, half carried their precious charges. The captain
bore his son and heir; Lieutenant Ross escorted Mrs. Rayner; two others
devoted themselves exclusively to Miss Travers; a fourth picked up the
Maltese kitten. Two or three smart, trim-looking infantry soldiers