Eugenie's breath was taken away by the very boldness of this
proposition.. She looked up timidly into Virginia's face, and
hero-worship got the better of prudence.

The house which General Fremont appropriated for his use when he came
back from Europe to assume command in the West was not a modest one. It
still stands, a large mansion of brick with a stone front, very tall and
very wide, with an elaborate cornice and plate-glass windows, both tall
and broad, and a high basement. Two stately stone porches capped by
elaborate iron railings adorn it in front and on the side. The chimneys
are generous and proportional. In short, the house is of that type built
by many wealthy gentlemen in the middle of the century, which has best
stood the test of time,--the only type which, if repeated to-day, would
not clash with the architectural education which we are receiving. A
spacious yard well above the pavement surrounds it, sustained by a wall
of dressed stones, capped by an iron fence. The whole expressed wealth,
security, solidity, conservatism. Alas, that the coal deposits under the
black mud of our Western states should, at length, have driven the owners
of these houses out of them! They are now blackened, almost buried in
soot; empty, or half-tenanted by boarders, Descendants of the old
families pass them on their way to business or to the theatre with a
sigh. The sons of those who owned them have built westward, and west-ward
again, until now they are six miles from the river.

On that summer evening forty years ago, when Virginia and Eugenie came in
sight of the house, a scene of great animation was before them. Talk was
rife over the commanding general's pomp and circumstance. He had just
returned from Europe, where pomp and circumstance and the military were
wedded. Foreign officers should come to America to teach our army dress