fortnight of their visit to the Surf House had shown her many attentions.  The illness of a daughter called her away, and Mrs. Rayner announced that she, too, was going elsewhere, when Mr. Van Antwerp himself returned, and Mrs. Rayner decided it was so late in the season that they had better remain until it was time to go to town.  In October they spent a fortnight in the city, staying at the Westminster, and he was assiduous in his attentions, taking them everywhere, and lavishing flowers and bonbons upon Nell.  Then Mrs. Van Antwerp invited them to visit her at her own comfortable, old-fashioned house down town, and Mrs. Rayner was eager to accept, but Nellie said no; she would not do it:  she could not accept Mr. Van Antwerp; she liked, admired, and was attracted by him, but she felt that love him she did not.  He was devoted, but had tact and patience, and Mrs. Rayner at last yielded to her demand and took her off in October to spend some time in the interior of the State with relations of their mother, and there, frequently, came Mr. Van Antwerp to see her and to urge his suit.  They were to have gone to Warrener immediately after the holidays, but January came and Nellie had not surrendered.  Another week in the city, a long talk with the devoted old mother whose heart was so wrapped up in her son’s happiness and whose arms seemed yearning to enfold the lovely girl, and Nellie was conquered.  If not fully convinced of her love for Mr. Van Antwerp, she was more than half in love with his mother.  Her promise was given, and then she seemed eager to get back to the frontier which she had known and loved as a child.  “I want to see the mountains, the snow-peaks, the great rolling prairies, once more,” she said; and he had to consent.  Man never urged more importunately than he that the wedding should come off that very winter; but Nellie once more said no; she could not and would not listen to an earlier date than the summer to come.

No one on earth knew with what sore foreboding and misery he let her go.  It was something that Mrs. Rayner could not help remarking,—­his unconquerable aversion to every mention of the army and of his own slight experience on the frontier.  He would not talk of it even with Nellie, who was an enthusiast and had spent two years of her girlhood almost under the shadow of Laramie Peak and loved the mere mention of the Wyoming streams and valleys.  In her husband’s name Mrs. Rayner had urged him to drop his business early in the spring and come to them for a visit.  He declared it was utterly impossible.  Every moment of his time must be given to the settling of estate affairs, so that he could be a free man in the summer.  He meant to take his bride abroad immediately and spend a year or more in Europe.  These were details which were industriously circulated by Mrs. Rayner and speedily became garrison property.  It seemed to the men that in bringing her sister there engaged she had violated all precedent to begin with, and in