What are you going to wear to-night?"
"I don't know, ma'am; anything cool, I suppose."
"It won't matter much," Mrs. Sandford repeated.
But yet I found she cared and it did matter, when it came to
the dressing time. However she was satisfied with one of the
embroidered muslins my mother had sent me from Paris.
I think I see myself now, seated in the omnibus and trundling
over the plain to the cadets' dancing rooms. The very hot,
still July night seems round me again. Lights were twinkling
in the camp, and across the plain in the houses of the
professors and officers; lights above in the sky too, myriads
of them, mocking the tapers that go out so soon. I was happy
with a little flutter of expectation; quietly enjoying
meanwhile the novel loveliness of all about me, along with the
old familiar beauty of the abiding stars and dark blue sky. It
was a five minutes of great enjoyment. But all natural beauty
vanished from my thoughts when the omnibus drew up at the door
of the Academic Building. I was entering on something untried.
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