“It is, my dear Cora, to tell you,” he wrote, “that if you should still be resolved to come out and join me here, an opportunity for your safe conduct will be offered you this autumn which may never occur again.  Our senior captain—­Captain Neville, Company A—­has been absent on leave for several months.  So he did not come out here with the regiment.  His leave expires on the 30th of November.  He will be obliged to start in the latter part of October in order to have time enough to accomplish the tedious journey by wagon from Leavenworth to Fort Farthermost, which is, as I believe I told you, in the southern part of the Indian Reserve, bordering on Texas.  He is to bring his wife with him.

“But our colonel thinks it is I who want you, and, moreover, I who need you; for he says that, next to a wife, a sister is the best safeguard a young officer can have out in these frontier forts, and he gave me the address of Captain Neville and advised me to write to him and ask him and his wife to take charge of my sister on the route.

“And then, dear, he went further than that.  He took my letter after I had written it, and inclosed it in one from himself.  So now, my dear, all you have to do is to go to Washington, call on Mrs. Neville, at Brown’s Hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue, and send up your card.  She will expect you.  Then you must hold yourself in readiness to start when the captain and his wife do.”

Cora had no time to indulge in reverie.  She must be up and doing.

Her luggage had long been stored in the freight house of the North End railway station, and her traveling bags had been packed the day before.  The servants knew she was going out to join her brother, though they did not know that her grandfather had discarded her.  She had very little to do for herself on that day, but she resolved to do all that she could for the comfort of her grandfather before she should leave the house forever.

So she went and ordered the dinner—­just such a dinner as she knew he would like.  Then she called old John to her presence and directed him to have the parlor prepared for his master just as carefully as if she herself were on the spot to see it done; to have the fire bright; the hearth clean; the lamps trimmed and lighted; the shutters closed and the curtains drawn; the easy chair, with dressing gown and slippers, before the fire, and, lastly, a jug of hot punch on the hearth.

Old John promised faithfully to perform all these duties.  Then Cora went and wrote two letters.

One to her brother Sylvan, in which she acknowledged the receipt of his letter, expressed her thanks to the colonel for his kindness, and assured him that she should gladly avail herself of the escort of the Nevilles and go out under their protection to Fort Farthermost.

This letter she put in the mail bag in the hall ready for the messenger to take to the North End post office.

The second letter was a farewell to her grandfather, in which she expressed her sorrow at leaving him even at his own command; her grief at having offended him, however unintentionally; her prayers for his forgiveness, and her hope to meet him again in health, happiness and prosperity.