I was delighted to go, because the most interesting groups had been passing the house, and it was difficult to see all you wanted to through the veil of creepers, without continually craning your neck. Tall, brown-faced boys, got up much like glorified Buttons, were sauntering about, holding sunshades over the heads of girls so young that they would have been in short frocks with their hair down their backs, in England. The girls were in white muslin or pale colours, with charming, floppy Leghorn hats trimmed with flowers; and they looked like the daintiest, prettiest of French dolls. But I was a great deal more interested in the youths, who were the cadets--first classmen, Potter said, and would be second lieutenants next year. I never could take much interest in Eton boys, the few I have seen, for they look such children that one would be positively ashamed to bother with them; but the West Point cadets (though one couldn't exactly take them seriously like regularly grown-up men, perhaps), fascinated me from the very first glance through Potter's Virginia creeper. They looked as if they thought a lot of themselves, and the girls they were with had the air of encouraging them to think it. I wondered what kind of things they said to girls and secretly longed to find out. It seems that in summer the cadets leave their barracks and go into camp, which is a time of year that the girls who visit West Point and those whose fathers are stationed there, like very much. We had a glimpse of the tents from the long street of the officers' quarters; and after we had visited a few technical things in which I was too polite to show that I was hardly interested, we strolled over to where we could see the little white pyramids gleaming under the Stars and Stripes. I had been afraid that all the cadets would have gone away to Flirtation Walk, with girls, but to my joy there were plenty left in camp. On chairs under the trees near by two or three ladies were sitting with some white-butterfly girls; and a crowd of cadets were talking to them. "There's a great pal of mine, Mrs. Laurence," said Captain Collingwood. "She would love to know you, Lady Betty. Do you mind if I introduce you to each other?" "See here, that means we shall be hitched up with all that lot of cadets," Potter objected, quite crossly. "What's the good of wasting time?" I hurried to say that I shouldn't consider it a waste of time, that I should be delighted to meet Mrs. Laurence, and also a few sample cadets, if any could be provided for the consumption of an enquiring British tourist. Captain Collingwood thought that one or two might be found who would not object to the sacrifice; and five minutes later I was having more fun than I had ever had before in my life.