Moya that it had, was Mrs. Creve's indorsement. As a family they were
quite sufficiently represented in the army; and if one should ever get an
Eastern detail it would be very pleasant to have a young niece charmingly
settled in New York.

The colonel drew a match across the top bar of the grate and set it to his
pipe. His big nostrils whitened as he took a deep in-breath. He reseated
himself and began his duty letter in the tone of a judicious parent; but,
warming as he wrote, under the influence of Annie's imagined sympathy, he
presently broke forth with his usual arrogant colloquialism.

"She might have had her pick of the junior officers in both branches. And
there was a captain of engineers at the Presidio, a widower, but an
awfully good fellow. And she has chosen a boy, full of transcendental
moonshine, who climbs upon a horse as if it were a stone fence, and has
mixed ideas which side of himself to hang a pistol on.

"I have no particular quarrel with the lad, barring his great burly
mouthful of a name, Bo--gardus! To call a child Moya and have her fetch up
with her soft, Irish vowels against such a name as that! She had a fond
idea that it was from Beauregard. But she has had to give that up. It's
Dutch--Hudson River Dutch--for something horticultural--a tree, or an
orchard, or a brush-pile; and she says it's a good name where it belongs.
Pity it couldn't have stayed where it belongs.

"However, you won't find him quite so scrubby as he sounds. He's very
proper and clean-shaven, with a good pair of dark, Dutch eyes, which he
gets from his mother; and I wish he had got her business ability with
them, and her horse sense, if the lady will excuse me. She runs the
property and he spends it, as far as she'll let him, on the newest