Mrs. Prescott spoke of the chance of her son’s being ordered away.  “I hope not,” she wrote, “for I want the quiet summer for him.  And for myself, too.  The great trees and the river, and you there, dear Katie, it seems the thing I most desire.  But we of the army learn often to relinquish the things we most desire.  We, the homeless, for in the abiding sense we are homeless, make homes possible.  Think of it with pride sometimes, Katie.  Our girls think of it all too little now.  I sometimes wonder how they can forego that just pride in their traditions.  During this spring in the West my thoughts have many times turned to those other days, days when men like your father and my husband performed the frontier service which made the West of to-day possible.  Recently at a dinner I heard a young woman, one of the ‘advanced’ type, and I am sorry to say of army people, speak laughingly to one of our men of the uselessness of the army.  She was worthy nothing but scorn, or I might have spoken of some of the things your mother and I endured in those days of frontier posts.  And now we have a California—­serene—­fruitful—­and can speak of the uselessness of the army!  Does the absurdity of it never strike them?”

Katie pondered that; wondered if Mrs. Prescott’s attitude and spirit were not passing with the frontier.  Few of the army girls she knew thought of themselves as homeless, or gave much consideration to that thing of making other homes possible, save, to be sure, the homes they were hoping—­and plotting—­to make for themselves.  And she could not see that the “young woman” was answered.  The young woman had not been talking about traditions.  Probably the young woman would say that yesterday having made to-day possible it was quite time to be quit of yesterday.  “Though to be sure,” Katie now answered her, “while we may not seem to be doing anything, we’re keeping something from being done, and that perhaps is the greatest service of all.  Were it not for us and our dear navy we should be sailed on from East and West, marched on from North and South.  At least that’s what we’re told by our superiors, and are you the kind of young woman to question what you’re told by your superiors?  Because if you are!—­I’d like to meet you.”

Her letter continued:  “Harry writes glowingly of your charming friend.  Strange that I am not able to recall her, though to be sure I knew little of you in those years abroad.  Was she a school friend?  I presume so.  Harry speaks of her as ‘the dear sort of girl,’ not leaving a clear image in my mind.  But soon my vision will be cleared.”

“Oh, will it?” mumbled Kate.  “I don’t know whether it will or not.  ’The dear sort of girl!’ And I presume the young goose thought he had given a vivid picture.”

She turned to Major Darrett’s note:  a charming note it was to turn to.  He had the gift of making himself very real—­and correspondingly attractive—­in those notes.

A few days before she had been telling Ann about Major Darrett.  “He’s a bachelor,” she had said, “and a joy.”  Ann had looked vague, and Katie laughed now in seeing that her characterization was broad as “the dear sort of girl.”