Heavens! What billing and cooing there was at Laramie all that late summer and autumn! How Jeannie Bruce blushed and bloomed when the ambulance finally landed Mr. Hatton at her side, and he took his limping but blissful daily walk in her society! How Nellie Bayard's soft cheeks grew rounder and rosier as the autumn wore away, and how her sweet eyes softened and glowed as they gazed up into the manly face of the young soldier whom she was just beginning to learn (very shyly and hesitatingly yet, and only when none but he could hear) to call "Randall." Rapturous confidences were those in which she and Jeannie Bruce daily engaged. Blissful were the glances with which they rewarded Miss Forrest for her warm and cordial congratulations. Delightful were the hours they presently began to spend with her; and dismal, dismal was the old frontier post when October came and those three young women with appropriate escort were spirited away together: Elinor to spend the winter with her grandparents and make who knows what elaborate preparations for the military wedding which was to come off in the following May; Jeannie Bruce to pay her a long visit and indulge in similar, though far less lavish, shopping on her own account; and Miss Forrest to return to the roof of old Mr. Courtlandt, who begged it as a solace to his declining years and fast-failing health. The doctor, McLean, and Hatton went with the party as far as Cheyenne and saw them, with their friends Major and Mrs. Stannard, of the cavalry, safely aboard the train for Omaha, and then with solemn visages returned to the desolation of their post to worry through the winter as best they could. Telegrams from Omaha and Chicago told of the safe and happy flight of the eastward travellers, and soon the letters began to come. "What do you think?" wrote both the younger girls, "who do you suppose was at Chicago to meet us but Mr. Holmes?" "All's well that ends well!" quoth Mr. Hatton, one evening soon after, as he blew a cloud of "Lynchburg sun-cured" tobacco-smoke across the top of the old Argand and tossed McLean a Cheyenne paper. "Celestine has gone to the penitentiary, and here's the sentence of the court in the case of Marsland and Parsons,--five years apiece." "All's well that ends well!" for those were glad and hopeful and happy hearts, as the long, long winter wore away and another May-day came around; and the sunshine danced on the snow crests of the grand old peak; and the foaming Laramie again tossed high its brawling surges; and the south wind swept away the few remaining drifts, searching them out in the depths of the bare ravines and bringing to light tender little tufts of green--the baby buffalo-grass: and one day there came a wild surprise, and the ladies swarmed to Mrs. Miller's for confirmation of the news that went from lip to lip,--the news that "her Majesty" had indeed at last surrendered, and that Roswell Holmes had wooed and won "The Queen of Bedlam." THE END.