If the breaking of your engagement was a blow to your pride, my dear boy, think what it was to Vera's. I don't know anyone prouder than she. And to publish the fact that you two had changed your minds--! She wanted to go away, but the Wadsworths are nearly as poor as they are proud, and she didn't feel justified. Then there came a letter from her cousin Dolly, who married that handsome Captain Marsh and was stationed at Plattsburg. Dolly's husband is now on the border, and Dolly could stand the separation no longer. She was going to Texas, and one of the cousins must come to Plattsburg and take charge of her house. The children wouldn't be a burden, because there was the very capable nurse who had taken care of them since they were born. And old Colonel Marsh wouldn't be a bother, having a certain routine which got him through his days very well. Of course it would be very dull with all the officers away from the post, and those at the instruction camp constantly busy. But one of the sisters must come and relieve her, or Dolly would go mad. She is all bound up in that husband of hers. It was plain that she expected Frances to come, being so domestic, and so old-fashioned-womanly. But Vera, you know, in spite of her suffragism and her feminism has always been kept by her father from having anything to do, and so she had nothing to occupy herself with just when she needed occupation most. So she declared that she must go, and of course Frances let her. "But you know," said Frances to me, looking up from her sewing with a little twinkle, "I know Vera will be in hot water with the old Colonel from the first, she is so out of sympathy with war, and the military life, and all it has (or hasn't) to offer women." That's her sex independence, you see. Vera can't know that you're there. She went just before you so suddenly made up your mind to go, and Frances hasn't written her of your going. I told her I shouldn't tell you, and begged her not to write Vera. And unless Vera recognizes you, which isn't likely, she will know nothing of your whereabouts.