are thinking more of the bread and butter and debts of to-morrow than of
Mr. Buchanan in the toils of his Southern Cabinet."

"That's so. Good-night."

Leila took upstairs with her John's last letter to her aunt, and sitting
down read it eagerly:

"WEST POINT.

"MY DEAR AUNT: The life here, as I wrote you, is something almost
monastic in its systematic regularity, and its despotic claims on one's
time. It leaves small leisure for letters except on Sundays; and if a
fellow means to be well placed, even then he is wise to do some work. The
outside world seems far away, and we read and can read few papers.

"I am of Uncle Jim's politics, but although there are many pretty
sensitive cadets from the South, some of them my friends, there is so
pleasant a camaraderie among us that there are few quarrels, and
certainly none of the bitterness of the two sections.

"I think I may have told you that we have no furlough until we have been
here two years, but I hope some time for a visit from Uncle Jim and you,
or at least from him and Leila. How she would enjoy it! The wonderful
beauty of the great river in the embrace of these wooded mountains, the
charm of the heroic lives it has nourished and the romance of its early
history are delightful--"

"Enjoy it," murmured Leila, "oh, would I not indeed!" Then she read on: