, 1896-11-30
AN ARMY COQUETTE.
Being a Tragic Tale of the Good Old
Times in Arizona.

III tiNH llle, tHe SOOl old days We're
AT a time not nearer than 80 wears
past; but in the service. a sun that rose
10 years ago shOne on a good old dav
There are railroads now. ani zig gar
risons near towns, and there are no In
dams las good old soldiers understood
Indians, and gambling is in discredit.
II colonels whose orders are obscur-
ed by liquor fumes have decreased 90
per cent, and there are houses with ev,
cry improvement instead of awl-tents
and abode huts, and the men have as
many rights as women in Wyoming,
Il the officers have fresh oysters and
dent pay a dollar a bottle for beer, and
their wives have mere interesting sub,
jects to consider than each other.
most sacredly private business
wherefore there is no longer war in
time of peace. Nevertheless. 10. 10, 20
years ago-when all these things were
not was the good old tine before the
service had begun to go to the particu,
lar bow-wows.
This that | am going to tell hap
pened in the good old days. II could
not very well happen now, because, as
| say, things have changed. At the
time, Betty Mandeville'S father was in
command at Apache and Betty was en-
gagged to be married Il an unusually
fnn failnu- uhncn nap,n 4, ,1. ,,.. n,
the story. He was a second lieutenant
and he was in love, with all the beau
tiful disregard of the facts OF life that
is characteristic of the enamored state.
or course the post knew of the en-
gagement before either of the two most
interested parties did. That was be-
cause this happened in the good old
days. For the same reason-though it
can occur sometimes now-Opinions on
the match flew thick and fast and OBJ
scured the sky of charity. They said
that the second lieutenant was making
a fool of himself. which was the only
unkind remark he fell heir to. But
Betty Jared worse. She came of a bad
strain. There were things in the his,
tories Of both her parents hal every
one knew and no one was supposed to
know. Her father was English and
had been a Jockey. He vas the son of
a concert-hall singer and a man whose
only nobility was his birth.
Miss Mandeville-who was more
Mexican than Spanish-bore a good
Castilian name which covered a multi
tude of sins.
There were any number of Mande-
vile children younger than Betty. and
all Enthusiastically favoring their
swarthy mother. They We're so dirty
that they were a disgrace to the post.
But Betty was tidy-as to dress-and
was blonde; fluffy, curlily blonde.
with a fine skin and innocent blue eyes
and a rosebud mouth. 1t was said she
looked like an English professional
beauty: but there was no one to recog,
nize the startling likeness to the on,
cert-hall grandmother. She had a taste
for laces, and hosiery, and h~igh-heeled
slippers thai may have been either a
Spanish or theatrical inheritance And
she was beautiful beyond a question,
with a beauty that was only skin-deep.
After she had promised to marry the
second lieutenant, Betty went down to
Lowell to visit her aunt, who was her
mothers sister and was the wife OF
Captain Locke. Betty knew that she
would enjoy herself more if the en-,
gagement were kept a secret. She
could keep it quiet, because it was in
the good old days and new travelled
slowly and distances were great.
Mrs. Locke vas nothing to be proud
of; but Betty. who detested her mother
and all her mothers family. liked her
uncle well enough. and got along IA
mously with him despite his temper.
She could herself understand how life
with one of the Franquelos might
change a naturally placid disposition.
On the second day of her stay her
aunt took her to stay overnight with
Sonora Franquelo in Tuscon. Which
was the beginning.
The Franquelo family was large, and
most Of it dwelt in the one house-an
abode with the external whitewash
broken off in oddly shaped pieces, and
built as all abodes were built in the
good old days-one story around a
courtyard. There was nothing in the
courtyard but chickens and ollas-
broken and otherwise-for the soil for
Tuscon is not fertile. Outside, where
the narrow doorway faced upon the
street, hardly less white under the
burning sun that the whitened walls
that lined it, a hooking bird cage OF
willow hung against the house. with a
red chile stuck between its bars. 1t
was the first time Betty had been un.
der the ancestral root.
Beside her grandmother, who was
more pleasant than the aunts, there
were cousins, male and female. OF
these, two-second cousins-were in
love. They were Carlos and Ines. In
less than 10 minutes Carlos had de,
serted black-browed Ines and was
languishing at Betty with his two soft
eyes. Ines was openly wretched, Car
los openly infatuated, Betty openly
flirting. But Carlos did not know that.
Betty and her aunt went back to