So they started on the war-path at once, even before Easter; and a very pleasant "fillibustering" expedition they made of it. Not many scalps were taken perhaps at first; but the defences of the white man were examined and broken through, his habits studied, his weapons blunted, his mode of strategy laid bare. By the middle of May, sundry Pale-Faces were going about with strange sensations under their waistcoats, that only wanted a little chafing to become serious disease of the heart. The aggravation was sure to follow, else wherefore were dresses of exquisite fabric contracted, gloves and bonnets sent home, coils of fragrant hair laid fold on fold, smooth, shining, and insidious as the involutions of the great Serpent himself? It was difficult to say which of these two Amazons could boast the highest score of victims. Perhaps Mrs. Lascelles proved most successful in the massacre of middle-aged adorers, while young boys and old gentlemen fell prostrate without effort, willing captives to the devilry and seductions of Miss Ross. Amongst the eldest of these, and the wisest, in his own opinion, was a certain Mr. Groves, a relative by marriage of Mrs. Lascelles, who persisted in calling him "Uncle Joseph," a name by which he soon became known in the circle of her intimates. This gentleman, at a mature period of life, when years are counted by scores and romance is supposed to have made way for comfort and self-indulgence, found his defences suddenly exposed to the merciless attacks of Miss Ross. He liked it uncommonly at first, flattering himself that at his age flirtation was a harmless and pleasing excitement, which he could leave off when it became oppressive or inconvenient, and that, if worst came to worst, he was in good hands,--the girl seemed so attached to him, so confiding, so sincere! Uncle Joseph used to rub his bald head in his cooler moments, and wonder fully as much at her as himself; but, with the lapse of years, he had at least learned that it is not well to analyse our pleasures too minutely; and he generally summed up with the philosophical reflection, that there was no accounting for taste. If the girl liked a man old enough to be her father, why it only showed she was a girl of sense, who knew the world, "Ay, and more than that, sir, a girl who knows her own mind!"