It was a curious sight--one that could only have been witnessed in a military community, used to scenes of excitement and ever prepared for danger--to see under the roof of the commanding officer of Fort Dearborn, not only men but delicate and educated and highly accomplished women, partaking, with seeming unconcern, of a meal which each felt might be the last but one they were fated to taste on earth, and as it were with the sword of Damocles suspended over their heads. There was an evident desire to banish from the mind any thought of the morrow--to sustain each other, yet with the conviction strong at their hearts that none of them would ever live to see Fort Wayne. They, nevertheless, talked seriously and deprecatingly of the change they would find between the two quarters--the one just overtopping the wild flats of Ohio, like a solitary oasis in the desert; the other, that which they were about to leave--rich in rides and drives, offering every facility and amusement to the lover of the gun and of the rod--to those whose taste led them to prefer rowing over the comparatively tiny waters of the Chicago, or sailing along the broad expanse of the noble Michigan. But they could not wholly succeed in cheating themselves into temporary forgetfulness of the much that was to intervene before that change could be effected. Now and then there would be a painful pause in the conversation; and then as each glanced into the eyes of each, and could distinctly read the dominant thought that was passing in his mind, another attempt would follow to give a tone of indifference to the subject.