The first week in June at West Point is such an old story that I had best not say much about it here. The (generally) perfect weather, the stirring drills, the crowd of lookers-on, with the sort of jail delivery from study hours and usual restrictions. The cadets come out and sun themselves like hibernated bees, or bears, with an unlimited taste for honey. "Best" dresses sweep the ground, "best" bonnets brave the wind; only the serene blue sky looks down unmoved at the show and frolic and madcap doings of the people. It is a little older than they.

The furlough men are wild with joy and expectation; the plebs have grown two inches since May. Second classmen are sporting imaginary chevrons (the nearest some of them will come to it); and the almost graduates walk at ease, kings in their own right. Bewitching damsels repeat the question, "O, where do you expect to be stationed?" But alas, the reply is not always, "Anywhere—with you!" That might have been in yearling camp; but things have changed; cadet limits are down; and Choice opens its eyes and waits.

In fact, there is need of some sober sense just now. For with the looming up of Fort Grant or Custer; Barrancas, Camp Assiniboine, or San Carlos: comes also the question of comforts and climates. These delicate creatures can walk all day and dance all night in West Point air. But what will their high heels do at Huachuca? and how will their fair cheeks stand the heat at Eagle Pass? Are they brave to be left with only soldier attendants when the young lieutenant is ordered off on a scout after Indians? Can they make bread, where the baker does not come round? and keep their sweet patience when some "ranking" new arrival swoops down upon their pretty quarters, and bids them move? Or again, what if the modest pay of a second-lieutenant should not comport with twenty-dollar bonnets?

Such questions go for little, when it's "a girl I have known for fifteen years"; but they press rather hard upon last week's acquaintance. No wonder many a face in the class looks thoughtful. And no wonder, either, that there are so many last leave-taking walks, for just the fair outlines and the grand old river, near and among which the men have won their shoulder-straps.

Among all the unwonted eyes that ever saw June come over West Point, none could get more delight than did Cadet Kindred's two young sisters. The mere shining out of the whole post in white trousers was an event. And the guns that greeted the Board of Visitors were, to the full, as imposing, as the various "planks" in that respected body. The girls watched every point of the welcoming review, and then studied the chosen guests as they trooped into the "big house" reception. But better than chicken salad indoors, was the music discoursed by the band in the pretty grounds outside. It may be said, however, that Violet did not fail to see Mr. Trueman, in sash and plume, go up the steps with the rest of the graduating class, and to think for one brief moment that it might be pleasant to go there too.

Only parade that night, but a wonderful walk after supper; and next day, and every day for ten more, a series of varied pleasures.

The examinations in the library were positively awe-inspiring; such battle plans, such hieroglyphics. There was some trembling of heart the first time they saw Magnus under fire; but he so plainly knew what he was about, that fear soon passed into rejoicing. And when Mr. Clinker was set to read Spanish, and the story (as translated) sounded unutterably ridiculous, Mrs. Ironwood declared that her two girls behaved better than she did.

Something of this in the morning; at night a concert; in the afternoon a drill. Perhaps on the cavalry plain with the ear-tearing racket of the Light Battery; where the guns were sometimes pointed at the ladies, and the ladies cried out, and stopped their ears, and ran away; and the hills sent back the thunder, and the descending sun half glorified the clouds of dust. Or maybe they went down by the river, and saw Mr. Trueman and a throng of unknown men build the pontoon bridge, themselves sitting on the grass in a blaze of sunshine, which the north wind softened down. With gay dresses on every side, and grey-and-white men standing behind them, or down on the grass too. Sugar-plums in many hands, the perfume of flirtation in all the air; and certainly their own attendant cavaliers were well disposed for both these soft delectations. But if Rose looked round, it was generally to put some intelligent question, which BouchÉ could only answer in kind; and Violet's bright eyes were too eagerly watching what Mr. True did with his boat, to heed what Randolph whispered about them.

How skilfully those huge grey pontoons swung into line; how stirring was the sounding tramp of the plank-bearers; how curiously they locked arms going back, and how very charming was the walk over that strange bridge when it was done.

Another day came skirmish drill, with the grey files in all sorts of varied action; the men scattered over the plain as a sower casts his seed. Speeding down in the hollow, dashing up the ridge, disappearing behind the trees, and firing straight at the pretty spectators. In those days, the short midway rest was all right for visiting; and so, when the other men dropped down on the grass, Magnus and Mr. Trueman and quite a little crowd came over to the seats, cap in hand. Smoky, and dusty, and hot—and charming—for a few minutes of lively talk. To the begrimed warriors every girl looked perfectly resplendent, in her fresh summer dress.

Then, as the drill went on, and the privates came down on one knee to fire, or crouched down, or lay at length, with the cadet officers standing motionless behind them; what terribly exposed positions the chevrons seemed to have! What a mark for the enemy's guns was each straight figure, casting its motionless shadow across the sunlit grass. Bullets might whistle over the men on the ground—but for these! It was all too real; and the young sisters were glad when those on the ground sprang up, and leaders and men were merged in an equality of danger.

One night there was the noisy, vivid, weird mortar drill; touched up with talk, flitting changes of place, comments, explanations, and fairyland bursts of red fire. What a night that was! The roar of the guns, the soft-spoken words; the flash-illumined smoke, the dark figures behind the "footlights" on the battery; the motley human mass which the crimson fire caught in its red glow.

Less picturesque, but more breathless in interest, was the cavalry drill on the plain and the grand charge.

In happy ignorance that surgeons and their attendants were in watchful waiting, the two girls found the whole thing just magnificent, and caught no hint of danger, even from other people's outcries. There was one lady in particular, handsome, well-dressed, and knowing everybody, whose son was in the drill, and whose fears were many and public. In the midst of the most harmless evolutions she was, as she phrased it, "on thorns"; and she danced about as if it were true.

Up on a seat to see better; down again that she might not see at all; with little cries and shrieks and groans of fright or expostulation—it was droll enough. Rose thought she would watch her when the charge really came,—and forgot her as July forgets December.

There had been a few minutes of seeming quiet, the squad all down by the library; but anyone who looked keenly could see this man examining his bridle, and that one tightening the girth. You could see them looking to their stirrups, or rising a little in the saddle to get a better seat. Then they began to move forward, slowly at first, then quicker, till the word was given:

"Charge!" and horses and men came tearing along like a Kansas cyclone upon the resounding road.

In some of the quieter moments before the charge, Rose and Violet had picked out two or three men they knew, noting their horses (they were not all dark then); and now, even in that dusty whirlwind, the grey and the black could be seen and followed. And—yes, certainly—Mr. Trueman's horse has leaped the Hotel fence, and the plucky rider puts him at it again, and comes bounding back. And Mr. Clinker's steed has swerved at the crossroad and gone dashing along towards Trophy Point, for freedom and Highland Falls. However, he missed in both, and everything came out right, and nobody was hurt; and the drill was pronounced in every way first-class. But for days after, when Violet shut her eyes, she seemed to see the flashing sabres, and hear again the ringing shout; and to watch that particular grey horse as he leaped the hedge.

Then came graduation; and Violet had the first sight of Mr. Trueman's diploma, as soon as he could step aside and show it. And Magnus was made first captain, and Mr. BouchÉ shone forth as adjutant; and even Mr. McLean found his arm adorned with three bright bars, to his own astonishment.

"All owing to Kin," he confided to the two sisters. "If he hadn't pinched me black and blue every day since Christmas, I should be on my way back to Kansas, to hoe potatoes for the rest of my life."

It may be said, in passing, that Mr. Trueman lingered at the post for a few days in "cits," and finally departed with a permit to show himself in the Western home, and plead his own cause there.

Mrs. Ironwood lingered, too, even longer, to let her charge have a taste of the pretty concerts and guard-mounting in camp; and then the girls packed their trunk, and saw the hills fade away in a mist that was all in their own eyes.