Between Miss Theodora and William Easton there had once been an engagement, known only to their most intimate friends. John's classmate and comrade in the war, he had never concealed his admiration for John's sister. It was just after Dorothy's death, when Ernest demanded all Miss Theodora's time, that William Easton was ordered to the western frontier. With the reorganization of the army he had gone into the Engineers, and now there was no chance, had he wished, to evade the duty to which he was assigned. He might stay at his new post four or five years, he said, and Theodora must marry him and go too. Always imperative, he tried hard enough to carry his point. But for Ernest's claims Miss Theodora would have yielded. "Ernest will come, too, of course," he said,--and failed, obstinately perhaps, to see the weight of Miss Theodora's objections. The locality to which he was bound was notoriously unhealthy. The surroundings would be in other respects unfavorable to the little boy,--and what chance would he have for an education in that remote and half-civilized region? Nor would Miss Theodora leave the child behind, even had there been any one with whom she could leave him. Surely she and William could wait. But William Easton, always impatient, went off to his distant post angry that Theodora should prefer a little child to him. Both were heart-sore at first, but time works wonders, and years after this parting, when Miss Theodora heard that he had married the daughter of a Colorado rancher, she hoped, yes, she really hoped, that he was happy. Ernest did not recognize as William Easton, his steamboat acquaintance, the young officer who stood beside his father in the little faded photograph on his aunt's dressing table. "What queer, loose-fitting uniforms they had! We'd smile if men wore their hair so long as that now." This was all the boy had thought, as he looked at the picture. But for Miss Theodora these two faded figures symbolized her heart's whole history.