Then he summoned the lieutenant (whose reluctance to leave Mrs. Wittleday’s side was rendered no less by a bright smile which that lady gave him as he departed), and made him acquainted with ladies of all ages, and of greatly varying personal appearance. The young warrior went through the ordeal with only tolerable composure, and improved his first opportunity to escape and regain the society of the hostess. Two or three moments later, just as Mrs. Wittleday turned aside to speak to stately old Judge Bray, the lieutenant found himself being led rapidly toward the veranda. The company had not yet found its way out of the parlors to any extent, so the major locked the lieutenant’s arm in his own, commenced a gentle promenade, and remarked: “Fred, my boy, you’re making an ass of yourself.” “Oh, nonsense, major,” answered the young man, with considerable impatience. “I don’t want to know all these queer, old-fashioned people; they’re worse than a lot of plebes at West Point.” “I don’t mean that, Fred, though, if you don’t want to make talk, you must make yourself agreeable. But you’re too attentive to Mrs. Wittleday.” “By George,” responded the lieutenant, eagerly, “how can I help it? She’s divine!” “A great many others think so, too, Fred—I do myself—but they don’t make it so plagued evident on short acquaintance. Behave yourself, now—your eyesight is good—sit down and play the agreeable to some old lady, and look at Mrs. Wittleday across the room, as often as you like.” The lieutenant was young; his face was not under good control, and he had no whiskers, and very little mustache to hide it, so, although he obeyed the order of his superior, it was with a visage so mournful that the major imagined, when once or twice he caught Mrs. Wittleday’s eye, that that handsome lady was suffering from restrained laughter. Humorous as the affair had seemed to the major before, he could not endure to have his preserver’s sorrow the cause of merriment in any one else; so, deputing Parson Fisher to make their excuse to the hostess when it became possible to penetrate the crowd which had slowly surrounded her, the major took his friend’s arm and returned to the cottage. “Major!” exclaimed the subaltern, “I—I half wish I’d let that Indian catch you; then you wouldn’t have spoiled the pleasantest evening I ever had—ever _began_ to have, I should say.” “You wouldn’t have had an evening at East Patten then, Fred,” said the major, with a laugh, as he passed the cigars, and lit one himself. “Seriously, my boy, you must be more careful. You came here to spend a pleasant three months with me, and the first time you’re in society you act, to a lady you never saw before, too, in such a way, that if it had been any one but a lady of experience, she would have imagined you in love with her.”