So this delightful girl was a verbal skirmisher! Now nothing is more to my liking than the verbal skirmish, and therefore I began one immediately. “I see you quite know,” was the first light shot that I hazarded. Her retort to this was merely a very bland and inquiring stare. I now aimed a trifle nearer the mark. “About him--her--it! Since you practically live in the Exchange, how can you exactly help yourself?” Her laughter came back. “It’s all, you know, so much later than 1812.” “Later! Why, a lot of it is to happen yet!” She leaned over the counter. “Tell me what you know about it,” she said with caressing insinuation. “Oh, well--but probably they mean to have your education progress chronologically.” “I think I can pick it up anywhere. We had to at the plantation.” It was from my table in the distant dim back of the room, where things stood lumpily under mosquito netting, that I told her my history. She made me go there to my lunch. She seemed to desire that our talk over the counter should not longer continue. And so, back there, over my chocolate and sandwiches, I brought out my gleaned and arranged knowledge which rang out across the distance, comically, like a lecture. She, at her counter, now and then busy with her ledger, received it with the attentive solemnity of a lecture. The ledger might have been notes that she was dutifully and improvingly taking. After I had finished she wrote on for a little while in silence. The curly white dog rose into sight, looked amiably and vaguely about, stretched himself, and sank to sleep again out of sight. “That’s all?” she asked abruptly. “So far,” I answered. “And what do you think of such a young man?” she inquired. “I know what I think of such a young woman.” She was still pensive. “Yes, yes, but then that is so simple.” I had a short laugh. “Oh, if you come to the simplicity!” She nodded, seeming to be doing sums with her pencil. “Men are always simple--when they’re in love.” I assented. “And women--you’ll agree?--are always simple when they’re not!” She finished her sums. “Well, I think he’s foolish!” she frankly stated. “Didn’t Aunt Josephine think so, too?” “Aunt Josephine?” “Miss Josephine St. Michael--my greet-aunt--the lady who embroidered. She brought me here from the plantation.” “No, she wouldn’t talk about it. But don’t you think it is your turn now?” “I’ve taken my turn!” “Oh, not much. To say you think he’s foolish isn’t much. You’ve seen him since?” “Seen him? Since when?” “Here. Since the postponement. I take it he came himself about it.” “Yes, he came. You don’t suppose we discussed the reasons, do you?” “My dear young lady, I suppose nothing, except that you certainly must have seen how he looked (he can blush, you know, handsomely), and that you may have some knowledge or some guess--” “Some guess why it’s not to be until Wednesday week? Of course he said why. Her poor, dear father, the General, isn’t very well.”