De Forrest was greatly relieved as he heard Hemstead describing his humble, farm-house home and toiling mother; for the student softened none of the hard outlines of their comparative poverty. "The great fool!" thought the exquisite. "Even if Lottie were inclined to care for him somewhat, he has repelled her now by revealing his common and poverty-stricken surroundings." But as Lottie became satisfied that Hemstead would not be able to go away in silence, a new cause of trouble and perplexity claimed her attention. Not that she had not thought of it often since she had realized how irrevocably she had given her love, but other and more immediate questions had occupied her mind. How was she to reconcile her fashionable mother and worldly father to her choice? She clearly recognized that what to her seemed the most natural--indeed, the only thing in life left for her--would appear to one simply monstrous, and to the other the baldest folly. She loved her parents sincerely, for, with all her faults, she had never been cold-hearted; and, while she proposed to be resolute, it was with the deepest anxiety and regret that she foresaw the inevitable conflict. But when she was at a loss to think of anything that could be said to soften the blow, or make her course appear right or reasonable, as they would look at it, a circumstance occurred which led, as she then believed, to the solution of the problem. After driving between two and three hours, they reached West Point in safety, and, as they were passing along by the officers' quarters, Lottie recognized a young lady who was one of her most intimate city friends, and who, she soon learned, was making a visit in the country, like herself. Lottie told Bel and Addie to go on to the dancing-hall, while she called on her friend, adding, "I will soon join you." The relations between Lottie and her friend were rather confidential, and the latter soon bubbled over with her secret. She was engaged to a cadet, who would graduate in the following June. "But he is away down towards the end of his class, and so, of course, will have to go out upon the Plains," she said, with a little sigh. "What will you do then?" asked Lottie, quickly, a bright thought striking her. "You surely will not exchange your elegant city home for barracks in some remote fort, where you may be scalped any night?" "I surely will," said the vivacious young lady; "and if you ever become half as much in love as I am, it won't seem a bit strange." "But what do your parents say to all this?" "O, well, of course they would much prefer that I should marry and settle in New York. But then, you know, mother always had a great admiration for the army, and it's quite the thing, in fashionable life, to marry into the army and navy. Why, bless you, Lottie, nearly all the ladies on the post have seen the roughest times imaginable on the frontier, and they come from as good families, and very many of them have left as good homes as mine."