“The gentleman told me to take all his handkerchiefs.  We’se got a dozen frozen soldiers in the baggage-car,—­some of ’em mighty bad,—­and they’se tryin’ to make ’em comfortable until they get to the fort.”

“Soldiers frozen!  Why do you take them in the baggage-car?—­such a barn of a place!  Why weren’t they brought here, where we could make them warm and care for them?” exclaimed Mrs. Rayner, in impulsive indignation.

“Laws, ma’am! never do in the world to bring frozen people into a hot car!  Sure to make their ears an’ noses drop off, that would!  Got to keep ’em in the cold and pile snow around ’em.  That gentleman sittin’ here,—­he knows,” he continued:  “he’s an officer, and him and the doctor’s workin’ with ’em now.”

And Mrs. Rayner, vanquished by a statement of facts well known to her yet forgotten in the first impetuosity of her criticism, relapsed into the silence of temporary defeat.

“He is an officer, then,” said Miss Travers, presently.  “I wonder what he belongs to.”

“Not to our regiment, I’m sure.  Probably to the cavalry.  He knew Major Stannard and other officers whom we passed there.”

“Did he speak to them?”

“No:  there was no time.  We were beyond hearing-distance when he ran to the back door of the car; and there was no time before that.  But it’s very odd!”

“What’s very odd?”

“Why, his conduct.  It is so strange that he has not made himself known to us, if he’s an officer.”

“Probably he doesn’t know you—­or we—­are connected with the army, Kate.”

“Oh, yes, he does.  The porter knows perfectly well, and I told him just before he left.”

“Yes, but he didn’t know before that time, did he?”

“He ought to have known,” said Mrs. Rayner, uncompromisingly.  “At least, he should if he had taken the faintest interest.  I mentioned Captain Rayner so that he could not help hearing.”

This statement being one that Miss Travers could in no wise contradict,—­as it was one, indeed, that Mrs. Rayner could have dispensed with as unnecessary,—­the younger lady again betook herself to silence and pulling the kitten’s ears.

“Even if he didn’t know before,” continued her sister, after a pause in which she had apparently been brooding over the indifference of the young man in question, “he ought to have made himself known after I told him who I was.”  Another pause.  “That’s what I did it for,” she wound up, conclusively.

“And that’s what I thought,” said Miss Travers, with a quiet smile.  “However, he had no time then:  he was hurrying off to see whether any of the soldiers had come on board.  He took his flask with him, and apparently was in haste to offer someone a drink.  I’m sure that is what papa used to do,” she added, as she saw a frown gathering on her sister’s face.

“What papa did just after the war—­a time when everybody drank—­is not at all the proper thing now.  Captain Rayner never touches it; and I don’t allow it in the house.”