"It depends on who the soldier is," I said.

"Cool, really!" said the captain. "Cool! Ha! ha!—"

And he laughed, till I wondered what I could have said to amuse him so much.

"Then you have learned to individualize soldiers already?" was his next question, put with a look which seemed to me inquisitive and impertinent. I did not know how to answer it, and left it unanswered; and the captain and I had the rest of our dance out in silence. Meanwhile, I could not help watching Faustina. She was so very handsome, with a marked, dashing sort of beauty that I saw was prodigiously admired. She took no notice of me, and barely touched the tips of my fingers with her glove as we passed in the dance.

As he was leading me back to Mrs. Sandford, the captain stooped his head to mine. "Forgive me," he whispered. "So much gentleness cannot bear revenge. I am only a soldier."

"Forgive you what, sir?" I asked. And he drew up his head again, half laughed, muttered that I was worse than grape or round shot, and handed me over to my guardian.

"My dear Daisy," said Mrs. Sandford, "If you were not so sweet as you are, you would be a queen. There, now, do not lift up your grey eyes at me like that, or I shall make you a reverence the first thing I do, and fancy that I am one of your dames d'honneur. Who is next? Major Banks? Take care, Daisy, or you'll do some mischief."

I had not time to think about her words; the dances went forward, and I took my part in them with great pleasure until the tattoo summons broke us up. Indeed, my pleasure lasted until we got home to the hotel, and I heard Mrs. Sandford saying, in an aside to her husband, amid some rejoicing over me—"I was dreadfully afraid she wouldn't go." The words, or something in them, gave me a check. However, I had too many exciting things to think of to take it up just then, and my brain was in a whirl of pleasure till I went to sleep.



CHAPTER XVII.

OBEYING ORDERS.

As I shared Mrs. Sandford's room, of course I had very scant opportunities of being by myself. In the delightful early mornings I was accustomed to take my book, therefore, and go down where I had gone the first morning, to the rocks by the river's side. Nobody came by that way at so early an hour; I had been seen by nobody except that one time, when Thorold and his companion passed me; and I felt quite safe. It was pleasanter down there than can be told. However sultry the air on the heights above, so near the water there was always a savour of freshness; or else I fancied it, in the hearing of the soft liquid murmur of the little wavelets against the shore. But sometimes it was so still I could hear nothing of that; then birds and insects, or the faint notes of a bugle call, were the only things to break the absolute hush; and the light was my refreshment, on river and tree and rock and hill; one day sharp and clear, another day fairylandlike and dreamy through golden mist.

It was a good retiring place in any case, so early in the day. I could read and pray there better than in a room, I thought. The next morning after my second dancing party, I was there as usual. It was a sultry July morning, the yellow light in the haze on the hills threatening a very hot day. I was very happy, as usual; but somehow my thoughts went roaming off into the yellow haze, as if the landscape had been my life, and I were trying to pick out points of light here and there, and sporting on the gay surface. I danced my dances over again in the flow of the river; heard soft words of kindness or admiration in the song of the birds; wandered away in mazes of speculative fancy among the thickets of tree stems and underbrush. The sweet wonderful note of a wood-thrush, somewhere far out of sight, assured me, what everything conspired to assure me, that I was certainly in fairyland, not on the common earth. But I could not get on with my Bible at all. Again and again I began to read; then a bird or a bough or a ripple would catch my attention, and straightway I was off on a flight of fancy or memory, dancing over again my dances with Mr. Thorold, dwelling upon the impression of his figure and dress, and the fascination of his brilliant, changing hazel eyes; or recalling Captain Vaux's or somebody else's insipid words and looks, or Faustina St. Clair's manner of ill-will; or on the other hand giving a passing thought to the question how I should dress the next hop night. After a long wandering, I would come back and begin at my Bible again, but only for a little; my fancy could not be held to it; and a few scarcely read verses and a few half-uttered petitions were all I had accomplished before the clangour of the hotel gong, sounding down even to me, warned me that my time was gone. And the note of the wood-thrush, as I slowly mounted the path, struck reproachfully and rebukingly upon the ear of my conscience.

How had this come about? I mused as I went up the hill. What was the matter? What had bewitched me? No pleasure in my Bible; no time for prayer; and only the motion of feet moving to music, only the flutter of lace and muslin, and the flashing of hazel eyes, filling my brain. What was wrong? Nay, something. And why had Mrs. Sandford "feared" I would not go to the hops? Were they not places for Christians to go to? What earthly harm? Only pleasure. But what if pleasure that marred better pleasure—that interrupted duty? And why was I ruminating on styles and colours, and proposing to put on another dress that should be more becoming the next time? and thinking that it would be well it should be a contrast to Faustina St. Clair? What! entering the lists with her, on her own field? No, no; I could not think of it. But what then? And what was this little flutter at my heart about gentlemen's words and looks of homage and liking? What could it be to me, that such people as Captain Vaux or Captain Lascelles liked me? Captain Lascelles, who when he was not dancing or flirting was pleased to curl himself up on one of the window seats like a monkey, and take a grinning survey of what went on. Was I flattered by such admiration as his?—or any admiration? I liked to have Mr. Thorold like me; yes, I was not wrong to be pleased with that; besides, that was liking; not empty compliments. But for my lace and my India muslin and my "Southern elegance"—I knew Colonel Walrus meant me when he talked about that—was I thinking of admiration for such things as these, and thinking so much that my Bible reading had lost its charm? What was in fault? Not the hops? They were too pleasant. It could not be the hops.

I mounted the hill slowly and in a great maze, getting more and more troubled. I entering the lists with Faustina St. Clair, going in her ways? I knew these were her ways. I had heard scraps enough of conversation among the girls about these things, which I then did not understand. And another word came therewith into my mind, powerful once before, and powerful now to disentangle the false from the true. "The world knoweth us not." Did it not know me, last night? Would it not, if I went there again? But the hops were so pleasant!

It almost excites a smile in me now to think how pleasant they were. I was only sixteen. I had seen no dancing parties other than the little school assemblages at Mme. Ricard's; and I was fond of the amusement even there. Here, it seemed to me, then, as if all prettiness and pleasantness that could come together in such a gathering met in the dancing room of the cadets. I think not very differently now, as to that point. The pretty accompaniments of uniform; the simple style and hours; the hearty enjoyment of the occasion; were all a little unlike what is found at other places. And to me, and to increase my difficulty, came a crowning pleasure; I met Thorold there. To have a good dance and talk with him was worth certainly all the rest. Must I give it up?

I could not bear to think so, but the difficulty helped to prick my conscience. There had been only two hops, and I was so enthralled already. How would it be if I had been to a dozen; and where might it end? And the word stands,—"The world knoweth us not."

It must not know me, Daisy Randolph, as in any sort belonging to it or mixed up with it; and therefore—Daisy Randolph must go to the hop no more. I felt the certainty of the decision growing over me, even while I was appalled by it. I staved off consideration all that day.

In the afternoon Mr. Thorold came and took me to see the laboratory, and explained for me a number of curious things. I should have had great enjoyment, if Preston had not taken it into his head, unasked, to go along; being unluckily with me when Thorold came. He was a thorough marplot; saying nothing of consequence himself, and only keeping a grim watch—I could take it as nothing else—of everything we said and did. Consequently, Mr. Thorold's lecture was very proper and grave, instead of being full of fun and amusement, as well as instruction. I took Preston to task about it when we got home.

"You hinder pleasure when you go in that mood," I told him.

"What mood?"

"You know. You never are pleasant when Mr. Thorold is present or when he is mentioned."

"He is a cowardly Yankee!" was Preston's rejoinder.

"Cowardly, Gary?"—said somebody near; and I saw a cadet whom I did not know, who came from behind us and passed by on the piazza. He did not look at us, and stayed not for any more words; but turning to Preston, I was surprised to see his face violently flushed.

"Who was that?"

"No matter—impertinence!" he muttered.

"But what is the matter? and what did he mean?"

"He is one of Thorold's set," said Preston; "and I tell you Daisy, you shall not have anything to do with them. Aunt Felicia would never allow it. She would not look at them herself. You shall not have anything more to do with them."

How could I, if I was going no more to the hops? How could I see Thorold, or anybody? The thought struck to my heart, and I made no answer. Company, however, kept me from considering the matter all the evening.

But the next day, early, I was in my usual place: near the river side, among the rocks, with my Bible; and I resolved to settle the question there as it ought to be settled. I was resolved; but to do what I had resolved was difficult. For I wanted to go to the hop that evening very much. Visions of it floated before me; snatches of music and gleams of light; figures moving in harmony; words and looks; and—my own white little person. All these made a kind of quaint mosaic with flashes of light on the river, and broad warm bands of sunshine on the hills, and the foliage of trees and bushes, and the grey lichened rocks at my foot. It was confusing; but I turned over the leaves of my Bible to see if I could find some undoubted direction as to what I ought to do, or perhaps rather some clear permission for what I wished to do. I could not remember that the Bible said anything about dancing, pro or con; dancing, I thought, could not be wrong; but this confusion in my mind was not right. I fluttered over my leaves a good while with no help; then I thought I might as well take a chapter somewhere and study it through. The whole chapter, it was the third of Colossians, did not seem to me to go favourably for my pleasure; but the seventeenth verse brought me to a point,—"Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."

There was no loophole here for excuses or getting off, "Whatsoever ye do." Did I wish it otherwise? No, I did not. I was content with the terms of service; but now about dancing, or rather, the dancing party? "In the name of the Lord Jesus." Could I go there in that name? as the servant of my Master, busy about His work, or taking pleasure that He had given me to take? That was the question. And all my visions of gay words and gay scenes, all the flutter of pleased vanity and the hope of it, rose up and answered me. By that thought of the pretty dress I would wear, I knew I should not wear it "in the name of the Lord Jesus;" for my thought was of honour to myself, not to Him. By the fear which darted into my head, that Mr. Thorold might dance with Faustina if I were not there, I knew I should not go "in the name of the Lord," if I went; but to gratify my own selfish pride and emulation. By the confusion which had reigned in my brain these two days, by the tastelessness of my Bible, by the unaptness for prayer, I knew I could not go in the name of my Lord, for it would be to unfit myself for His work.

The matter was settled in one way; but the pain of it took longer to come to an end. It is sorrowful to me to remember now how hard it was to get over. My vanity I was heartily ashamed of, and bade that show its head no more; my emulation of Faustina St. Clair gave me some horror; but the pleasure—the real honest pleasure, of the scene, and the music and the excitement and the dancing and the seeing people—all that I did not let go for ever without a hard time of sorrow and some tears. It was not a struggle, for I gave that up at once; only I had to fight pain. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. And the worst of all and the most incurable was, I should miss seeing Mr. Thorold. One or two more walks, possibly, I might have with him; but those long, short evenings of seeing and talking and dancing!

Mrs. Sandford argued, coaxed, and rallied me; and then said, if I would not go, she should not; and she did not. That evening we spent at home together, and alone; for everybody else had drifted over to the hop. I suppose Mrs. Sandford found it dull; for the next hop night she changed her mind and left me. I had rather a sorrowful evening. Dr. Sandford had not come back from the mountains; indeed, I did not wish for him; and Thorold had not been near us for several days. My fairyland was getting disenchanted a little bit. But I was quite sure I had done right.

The next morning, I had hardly been three minutes on my rock by the river, when Mr. Thorold came round the turn of the walk and took a seat beside me.

"How do you do?" said he, stretching out his hand. I put mine in it.

"What has become of my friend, this seven years?"

"I am here—" I said.

"I see you. But why have I not seen you, all this while?"

"I suppose you have been busy," I answered.

"Busy! Of course I have, or I should have been here asking questions. I was not too busy to dance with you: and I was promised—how many dances? Where have you been?"

"I have been at home."

"Why?"

Would Mr. Thorold understand me? Mrs. Sandford did not. My own mother never did. I hesitated, and he repeated his question, and those hazel eyes were sparkling all sorts of queries around me.

"I have given up going to the hops," I said.

"Given up? Do you mean, you don't mean, that you are never coming any more?"

"I am not coming any more."

"Don't you sometimes change your decisions?"

"I suppose I do," I answered; "but not this one."

"I am in a great puzzle," he said. "And very sorry. Aren't you going to be so good as to give me some clue to this mystery? Did you find the hops so dull?"

And he looked very serious indeed.

"Oh no!" I said. "I liked them very much—I enjoyed them very much. I am sorry to stay away."

"Then you will not stay away very long."

"Yes—I shall."

"Why?" he asked again, with a little sort of imperative curiosity which was somehow very pleasant to me.

"I do not think it is right for me to go," I said. Then, seeing grave astonishment and great mystification in his face, I added, "I am a Christian, Mr. Thorold."

"A Christian!" he cried, with flashes of light and shadow crossing his brow. "Is that it?"

"That is it," I assented.

"But my dear Miss Randolph—you know we are friends?"

"Yes," I said, smiling, and glad that he had not forgotten it.

"Then we may talk about what we like. Christians go to hops."

I looked at him without answering.

"Don't you know they do?"

"I suppose they may—" I answered, slowly.

"But they do. There was our former colonel's wife—Mrs. Holt; she was a regular church-goer, and a member of the church; she was always at the hop, and her sister; they are both church members. Mrs. Lambkin, General Lambkin's wife, she is another. Major Banks' sisters—those pretty girls—they are always there; and it is the same with visitors. Everybody comes; their being Christians does not make any difference."

"Captain Thorold," said I—"I mean Mr. Thorold, don't you obey your orders?"

"Yes—general," he said. And he laughed.

"So must I."

"You are not a soldier."

"Yes—I am."

"Have you got orders not to come to our hop?"

"I think I have. You will not understand me, but this is what I mean, Mr. Thorold. I am a soldier, of another sort from you; and I have orders not to go anywhere that my Captain does not send me, or where I cannot be serving Him."

"I wish you would show those orders to me."

I gave him the open page which I had been studying, that same chapter of Colossians, and pointed out the words. He looked at them, and turned over the page, and turned it back.

"I don't see the orders," he said.

I was silent. I had not expected he would.

"And I was going to say, I never saw any Christians that were soldiers; but I have, one. And so you are another?" And he bent upon me a look so curiously considering, tender, and wondering, at once, that I could not help smiling.

"A soldier!" said he, again. "You? Have you ever been under fire?"

I smiled again, and then, I don't know what it was. I cannot tell what, in the question and in the look, touched some weak spot. The question called up such sharp answers; the look spoke so much sympathy. It was very odd for me to do, but I was taken unawares; my eyes fell and filled, and before I could help it were more than full. I do not know, to this day, how I came to cry before Thorold. It was very soon over, my weakness, whatever it was. It seemed to touch him amazingly. He got hold of my hand, put it to his lips, and kissed it over and over, outside and inside.

"I can see it all in your face," he said, tenderly: "the strength and the truth to do anything, and bear—whatever is necessary. But I am not so good as you. I cannot bear anything unless it is necessary; and this isn't."

"Oh no, nor I!" I said; "but this is necessary, Mr. Thorold."

"Prove it—come."

"You do not see the orders," I said; "but there they are. 'Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.' I cannot go to that place 'in His name.'"

"I do not think I understand what you mean," he said, gently. "A soldier, the best that ever lived, is his own man when he is off duty. We go to the hop to play—not to work."

"Ah, but a soldier of Christ is never 'off duty,'" I said. "See, Mr. Thorold—'whatsoever ye do'—'whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do.' That covers all; don't you see?"

"That would make it a very heavy thing to be a Christian," he said; "there would be no liberty at all."

"Oh, but it is all liberty!" I said,—"When you love Jesus."

He looked at me so inquiringly, so inquisitively, that I went on.

"You do not think it hard to do things for anybody you love?"

"No," said he. "I would like to do things for you."

I remember I smiled at that, for it seemed to me very pleasant to hear him say it; but I went on.

"Then you understand it, Mr. Thorold."

"No," said he, "I do not understand it; for there is this difficulty. I do not see what in the world such an innocent amusement as that we are talking of can have to do with Christian duty, one way or another. Every Christian woman that I know comes to it,—that is young enough; and some that aren't."

It was very hard to explain.

"Suppose they disobey orders," I said slowly;—"that would be another reason why I should obey them."

"Of course. But do they?"

"I should," I said. "I am not serving Christ when I am there. I am not doing the work He has given me to do. I cannot go."

"I came down here on purpose to persuade you," he said.

It was not necessary to answer that, otherwise than by a look.

"And you are unpersuadable," he said; "unmanageable, of course, by me; strong as a giant, and gentle as a snowflake. But the snowflake melts; and you—you will go up to the hotel as good a crystal as when you came down."

This made me laugh, and we had a good laugh together, holding each other's hand.

"Do you know," said he, "I must go? There is a roll of a summons that reaches my ear, and I must be at the top of the bank in one minute and a quarter. I had no leave to be here."

"Hadn't you?" I said. "Oh, then, go, go directly, Mr. Thorold!"

But I could not immediately release my hand, and holding it and looking at me, Thorold laughed again; his hazel eyes sparkling and dancing and varying with what feelings I could not tell. They looked very steadily, too, till I remember mine went down, and then, lifting his cap, he turned suddenly and sprang away. I sat down to get breath and think.

I had come to my place rather sober and sorrowful; and what a pleasant morning I had had! I did not mind at all, now, my not going to the dances. I had explained myself to Mr. Thorold, and we were not any further apart for it, and I had had a chance to speak to him about other things too. And though he did not understand me, perhaps he would some day. The warning gong sounded before I had well got to my Bible reading. My Bible reading was very pleasant this morning, and I could not be baulked of it; so I spent over it near the whole half hour that remained, and rushed up to the hotel in the last five minutes. Of course, I was rather late and quite out of breath; and having no voice and being a little excited, I suppose was the reason that I curtseyed to Dr. Sandford, whom I met at the head of the piazza steps. He looked at me like a man taken aback.

"Daisy!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"Where have you come from?"

"From my study," I said. "I have a nice place down by the river which is my study."

"Rather a public situation for a private withdrawing place," said the doctor.

"Oh no!" said I. "At this hour—" But there I stopped and began again. "It is really very private. And it is the pleasantest study place I think I ever had."

"To study what?"

I held up my book.

"It agrees with you," said the doctor.

"What?" said I, laughing.

"Daisy!" said Dr. Sandford—"I left a quiet bud of a flower a few days ago—a little demure bit of a schoolgirl, learning geology; and I have got a young princess here, a full rose, prickles and all, I don't doubt. What has Mrs. Sandford done with you?"

"I do not know," said I, thinking I had better be demure again. "She took me to the hop."

"The hop?—how did you like that?"

"I liked it very much."

"You did? You liked it? I did not know that you would go, with your peculiar notions."

"I went," I said; "I did not know what it was. How could I help liking it? But I am not going again."

"Why not, if you like it?"

"I am not going again," I repeated. "Shall we have a walk to the hills to-day, Dr. Sandford?"

"Grant!" said his sister-in-law's voice, "don't you mean the child shall have any breakfast? What made you so late, Daisy? Come in, and talk afterwards. Grant is uneasy if he can't see at least your shadow all the while."

We went in to breakfast, and I took a delightful walk with Dr. Sandford afterward, back in the ravines of the hills; but I had got an odd little impression of two things. First, that he, like Preston, was glad to have me give up going to the hops. I was sure of it from his air and tone of voice, and it puzzled me; for he could not possibly have Preston's dislike of Northerners, nor be unwilling that I should know them. The other thing was, that he would not like my seeing Mr. Thorold. I don't know how I knew it, but I knew it. I thought—it was very odd—but I thought he was jealous; or rather, I felt he would be if he had any knowledge of our friendship for each other. So I resolved he should have no such knowledge.

Our life went on now as it had done at our first coming. Every day Dr. Sandford and I went to the woods and hills, on a regular naturalist's expedition; and nothing is so pleasant as such expeditions. At home, we were busy with microscopic examinations, preparations, and studies; delightful studies, and beautiful lessons, in which the doctor was the finest of instructors, as I have said, and I was at least the happiest of scholars. Mrs. Sandford fumed a little, and Mr. Sandford laughed; but that did no harm. Everybody went to the hops, except the doctor and me; and every morning and evening, at guardmounting and parade, I was on the ground behind the guard tents to watch the things done and listen to the music and enjoy all the various beauty. Sometimes I had a glimpse of Thorold; for many both of cadets and officers used to come and speak to me and rally me on my seclusion, and endeavour to tempt me out of it. Thorold did not that; he only looked at me, as if I were something to be a little wondered at but wholly approved of. It was not a disagreeable look to meet.

"I must have it out with you," he said one evening, when he had just a minute to speak to me. "There is a whole world of things I don't understand, and want to talk about. Let us go Saturday afternoon and take a long walk up to 'Number Four'—do you like hills?"

"Yes."

"Then let us go up there Saturday—will you?"

And when Saturday came, we went. Preston luckily was not there; and Dr. Sandford, also luckily, was gone to dine at the General's with his brother. There were no more shadows on earth than there were clouds in the sky, as we took our way across the plain and along the bank in front of the officers' quarters looking north, and went out at the gate. Then we left civilization and the world behind us, and plunged into a wild mountain region; going up, by a track which few feet ever used, the rough slope to "Number Four." Yet that a few feet used it was plain.

"Do people come here to walk much?" I asked, as we slowly made our way up.

"Nobody comes here—for anything."

"Somebody goes here," I said. "This is a beaten path."

"Oh, there is a poor woodcutter's family at the top; they do travel up and down occasionally."

"It is pretty," I said.

"It is pretty at the top; but we are a long way from that. Is it too rough for you?"

"Not at all," I said. "I like it."

"You are a good walker for a Southern girl."

"Oh, but I have lived at the North; I am only Southern born."

Soon, however, he made me stop to rest. There was a good grey rock under the shadow of the trees; Thorold placed me on that and threw himself on the moss at my feet. We were up so high in the world that the hills on the other side of the river rose beautifully before us through the trees, and a sunny bit of the lower ground of the plain looked like a bit of another world that we were leaving. It was a sunny afternoon and a little hazy; every line softened, every colour made richer, under the mellowing atmosphere.

"Now you can explain it all to me," said Thorold, as he threw himself down. "You have walked too fast. You are warm."

"And you do not look as if it was warm at all."

"I! This is nothing to me," he said. "But perhaps it will warm me and cool you if we get into a talk. I want explanations."

"About what, Mr. Thorold?"

"Well—if you will excuse me—about you," he said, with a very pleasant look, frank and soft at once.

"I am quite ready to explain myself. But I am afraid, when I have done it, that you will not understand me, Mr. Thorold."

"Think I cannot?" said he.

"I am afraid not—without knowing what I know."

"Let us see," said Thorold. "I want to know why you judge so differently from other people about the right and the wrong of hops and such things. Somebody is mistaken—that is clear."

"But the difficulty is, I cannot give you my point of view."

"Please try," said Thorold, contentedly.

"Mr. Thorold, I told you, I am a soldier."

"Yes," he said, looking up at me, and little sparkles of light seeming to come out of his hazel eyes.

"I showed you my orders."

"But I did not understand them to be what you said."

"Suppose you were in an enemy's country," I said; "a rebel country; and your orders were, to do nothing which could be construed into encouraging the rebels, or which could help them to think that your king would hold friendship with them, or that there was not a perfect gulf of division between you and them."

"But this is not such a case?" said Thorold.

"That is only part," I said. "Suppose your orders were to keep constant watch and hold yourself at every minute ready for duty, and to go nowhere and do nothing that would unfit you for instant service, or put you off your watch?"

"But, Miss Randolph!" said Thorold, a little impatiently, "do these little dances unfit you for duty?"

"Yes," I said. "And put me off my watch."

"Your watch against what? Oh, pardon me, and please enlighten me. I do not mean to be impertinent."

"I mean my watch for orders—my watch against evil."

"Won't you explain?" said Thorold, gently and impatiently at once. "What sort of evil can you possibly fear, in connection with such an innocent recreation? What 'orders' are you expecting?"

I hesitated. Should I tell him; would he believe; was it best to unveil the working of my own heart to that degree? And how could I evade or shirk the question?

"I should not like to tell you," I said at length, "the thoughts and feelings I found stirring in myself, after the last time I went to the dance. I dare say they are something that belongs especially to a woman, and that a man would not know them."

Thorold turned on me again a wonderfully gentle look, for a gay, fiery young Vermonter, as I knew him to be.

"It wanted only that!" he said. "And the orders, Miss Randolph—what 'orders' are you expecting? You said orders."

"Orders may be given by a sign," I said. "They need not be in words."

He smiled. "I see, you have studied the subject."

"I mean, only, that whenever a duty is plainly put before me—something given me to do—I know I have 'orders' to do it. And then, Mr. Thorold, as the orders are not spoken, nor brought to me by a messenger, only made known to me by a sign of some sort—If I did not keep a good watch, I should be sure to miss the sign sometimes, don't you see?"

"This is soldiership!" said Thorold. And getting up, he stood before me in attitude like a soldier as he was, erect, still with arms folded, only not up to his chin, like Capt. Percival, but folded manfully. He had been watching me very intently; now he stood as intently looking off over the farther landscape. Methought I had a sort of pride in his fine appearance; and yet he did in no wise belong to me. Nevertheless, it was pleasant to see the firm, still attitude, the fine proportions, the military nicety of all his dress, which I had before noticed on the parade ground. For as there is a difference between one walk and another, though all trained, so there is a difference between one neatness and another, though all according to regulation: and Preston never looked like this.

He turned round at last, and smiled down at me.

"Are you rested?"

"O yes!" I said, rising. "I was not fatigued."

"Are you tired talking?"

"No, not at all. Have I talked so very much?"

He laughed at that, but went on.

"Will you be out of patience with my stupidity?"

I said no.

"Because I am not fully enlightened yet. I want to ask further questions; and asking questions is very impertinent."

"Not if you have leave," I said. "Ask what you like."

"I am afraid, nevertheless. But I can never know, if I do not ask. How is it—this is what puzzles me—that other people who call themselves Christians do not think as you do about this matter?"

"Soldiership?" I asked.

"Well, yes. It comes to that, I suppose."

"You know what soldiership ought to be," I said.

"But one little soldier cannot be all the rank and file of this army?" he said, looking down at me.

"O no!" I said, laughing—"there are a great many more—there are a great many more—only you do not happen to see them."

"And these others, that I do see, are not soldiers, then?"

"I do not know," I said, feeling sadly what a stumbling-block it was. "Perhaps they are. But you know yourself, Mr. Thorold, there is a difference between soldiers and soldiers."

He was silent a while, as we mounted the hill; then he continued—

"But it makes religion a slavery—a bondage—to be all the while under arms, on guard, watching orders. Always on the watch and expecting to be under fire—it is too much; it would make a gloomy, ugly life of it."

"But suppose you are under fire?" I said.

"What?" said he, looking and laughing again.

"If you are a good soldier in an enemy's country, always with work to do; will you wish to be off your guard, or off duty?"

"But what a life!" said Thorold.

"If you love your Captain?" said I.

He stopped and looked at me with one of the keenest looks of scrutiny I ever met. It seemed to scrutinize not me only, but the truth. I thought he was satisfied; for he turned away without adding anything more at that time. His mind was at work, however; for he broke down a small branch in his way and busied himself with it in sweeping the trunks of the trees as we went by; varying the occupation with a careful clearing away of all stones and sticks that would make my path rougher than it need be. Finally, giving me his hand to help me spring over a little rivulet that crossed our way.

"Here is an incongruity, now I think of it," said he, smiling. "How is it that you be on such good terms with a rebel? Ought you to have anything to do with me?"

"I may be friends with anybody in his private capacity," I answered in the same tone. "That does not compromise anything. It is only when—You know what I mean."

"When they are assembled for doubtful purposes."

"Or gathered in a place where the wrong colours are displayed," I added. "I must not go there."

"There was no false banner hung out on the Academic Building the other night," he said humorously.

But I knew my King's banner was not either. I knew people did not think of Him there, nor work for Him, and would have been very much surprised to hear any one speak of Him. Say it was innocent amusement; people did not want Him with them there; and where He was not, I did not wish to be. But I could not tell all this to Mr. Thorold. He was not contented, however, without an answer.

"How was it?" he asked.

"You cannot understand me and you may laugh at me," I said.

"Why may I not understand you?" he asked deferentially.

"I suppose, because you do not understand something else," I said; "and you cannot, Mr. Thorold, until you know what the love of Jesus is, and what it is to care for His honour and His service more than for anything else in the world."

"But are they compromised?" he asked. "That is the thing. You see, I want you back at the hop."

"I would like to come," said I; "but I must not."

"On the ground—?"

"I told you, Mr. Thorold. I do not find that my orders allow me to go. I must do nothing that I cannot do in my King's name."

"That is—"

"As His servant—on His errands—following where He leads me."

"I never heard it put so before," said Thorold. "It bears the stamp of perfection—only an impossible perfection."

"No—" said I.

"To ordinary mortals," he rejoined, with one of his quick, brilliant flashes of the eye. Then, as it softened and changed again—

"Miss Randolph, permit me to ask one question—Are you happy?"

And with the inquiry came the investigating look, keen as a razor or a rifle ball. I could meet it, though; and I told him it was this made me happy. For the first time his face was troubled. He turned it from me and dropped the conversation. I let it drop, too; and we walked side by side and silently the remainder of the steep way; neither of us, I believe, paying much attention to what there was to be seen below or around us. At the top, however, this changed. We found a good place to rest, and sat there a long time looking at the view; Thorold pointing out its different features, and telling me about them in detail; his visits to them, and exploration of the region generally. And we planned imaginary excursions together, one especially to the top of the Crow's Nest, with an imaginary party, to see the sun rise. We would have to go up, of course, overnight; we must carry a tent along for shelter, and camp-beds, and cooking utensils, at least a pot to boil coffee; and plenty of warm wraps and plenty of provisions, for people always eat terribly in cold regions, Thorold said. And although the top of the Crow's Nest is not Arctic by any means, still, it is cool enough even in a warm day, and would be certainly cool at night. Also the members of our party we debated; they must be people of good tempers and travelling habits, not to be put out for a little; people with large tastes for enjoyment, to whom the glory of the morning would make amends for all the toil of the night; and good talkers, to keep up the tone of the whole thing. Meanwhile, Thorold and I heartily enjoyed Number Four; as also I did his explanations of fortifications, which I drew from him and made him apply to all the fortifications in sight or which I knew. And when the sun's westing told us it was time to go home, we went down all the way talking. I have but little remembrance of the path. I remember the cool, bright freshness of the light, and its brilliant gleam in the distance after it had left the hillside. I have an impression of the calm clear beauty that was underfoot and overhead that afternoon; but I saw it only as I could see it while giving my thought to something else. Sometimes, holding hands, we took runs down the mountain side; then walked demurely again when we got to easier going. We had come to the lower region at last, and were not far from the gate, talking earnestly and walking close together, when I saw Thorold touch his cap.

"Was that anybody I knew?" I asked.

"I believe it was your friend Dr. Sandford," he said, smiling into my face with a smile of peculiar expression and peculiar beauty. I saw something had pleased him, pleased him very much. It could not have been Dr. Sandford. I cannot say I was pleased, as I had an intuitive assurance the doctor was not. But Thorold's smile almost made amends.

That evening the doctor informed us he had got intelligence which obliged him to leave the Point immediately; and as he could go with us part of the way to Niagara, we had better all set off together. I had lost all my wish to go to Niagara; but I said nothing. Mrs. Sandford said there was nothing to be gained by staying at the Point any longer, as I would not go to the hops. So Monday morning we went away.



CHAPTER XVIII.

SOUTH AND NORTH.

We made a round of pleasure after leaving West Point. That is, it was a round of pleasure to the rest of the party. I had left my best pleasure behind me. Certainly, I enjoyed Catskill, and Trenton Falls, and Niagara, after some sort; but there was nothing in them all like my walk to "Number Four." West Point had enough natural beauty to satisfy any one, I thought, even for all summer; and there I had besides what I had not elsewhere and never had before, a companion. All my earlier friends were far older than I, or beneath me in station. Preston was the single exception; and Preston and I were now widely apart in our sympathies; indeed, always had been. Mr. Thorold and I talked to each other on a level; we understood each other and suited each other. I could let out my thoughts to him with a freedom I never could use with anybody else.

It grieved me a little that I had been forced to come away so abruptly that I had no chance of letting him know. Courtesy, I thought, demanded of me that I should have done this; and I could not do it; and this was a constant subject of regret to me.

At the end of our journey I came back to school. Letters from my father and mother desired that I would do so, and appointed that I was to join them abroad next year. My mother had decided that it was best not to interfere with the regular course of my education; and my father renewed his promise that I should have any reward I chose to claim, to comfort me for the delay. So I bent myself to study with new energies and new hope.

I studied more things than school books that winter. The bits of political matter I had heard talked over at West Point were by no means forgotten; and once in a while, when I had time and a chance, I seized one of the papers from Mme. Ricard's library table and examined it. And every time I did so, something urged me to do it again. I was very ignorant. I had no clue to a great deal that was talked of in these prints: but I could perceive the low threatening growl of coming ill weather, which seemed to rise on the ear every time I listened. And a little anxiety began to grow up in my mind. Mme. Ricard, of course, never spoke on these subjects, and probably did not care about them. Dr. Sandford was safe in Washington. I once asked Miss Cardigan what she thought. "There are evil men abroad, dear," she said. "I don't know what they will be permitted to do."

"Who do you hope will be elected?" I asked.

"I don't vote myself," said Miss Cardigan; "so I do not fash myself much with what I can't help; but I hope the man will be elected that will do the right thing."

"And who is that?" I asked. "You do not want slavery to be allowed in the territories?"

"I? Not I!" said Miss Cardigan. "And if the people want to keep it out of them, I suppose they will elect Abraham Lincoln. I don't know if he is the right man or no; but he is on the right side. 'Break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free.' That is my maxim, Daisy."

I pondered this matter by turns more and more. By and by there began to be audible mutterings of a storm in the air around me. The first I heard was when we were all together in the evening with our work, the half hour before tea.

"Lincoln is elected," whispered one of the girls to another.

"Who cares?" the other said aloud.

"What if he is?" asked a third.

"Then," said a gentle, graceful-looking girl, spreading her embroidery out on her lap with her slim white fingers—"then there'll be fighting."

It was given, this announcement, with the coolest matter-of-fact assurance.

"Who is going to fight?" was the next question.

The former speaker gave a glance up to see if her audience was safe, and then replied, as coolly as before,—

"My brother, for one."

"What for, Sally?"

"Do you think we are going to have these vulgar Northerners rule over us? My cousin Marshall is coming back from Europe on purpose that he may be here and be ready. I know my aunt wrote him word that she would disinherit him if he did not."

"Daisy Randolph—you are a Southerner," said one of the girls.

"Of course, she is a Southerner," said Sally, going on with her embroidery. "She is safe."

But if I was safe, I was very uncomfortable. I hardly knew why I was so uncomfortable. Only, I wished ardently that troubles might not break out between the two quarters of the country. I had a sense that the storm would come near home. I could not recollect my mother and my father, without a dread that there would be opposing electricities between them and me.

I began to study the daily news more constantly and carefully. I had still the liberty of Madame's library, and the papers were always there. I could give to them only a few minutes now and then; but I felt that the growl of the storm was coming nearer and growing more threatening. Extracts from Southern papers seemed to my mind very violent and very wrong-headed; at the same time, I knew that my mother would endorse and Preston echo them. Then South Carolina passed the ordinance of secession. Six days after, Major Anderson took possession of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour, and immediately the fort he had left and Castle Pinckney were garrisoned by the South Carolinians in opposition. I could not tell how much all this signified; but my heart began to give a premonitory beat sometimes. Mississippi followed South Carolina; then United States' forts and arsenals were seized in North Carolina and Georgia and Alabama, one after the other. The tone of the press was very threatening, at least of the Southern press. And not less significant, to my ear, was the whisper I occasionally heard among a portion of our own little community. A secret whisper, intense in its sympathy with the seceding half of the nation, contemptuously hostile to the other part, among whom they were at that very moment receiving Northern education and Northern kindness. The girls even listened and gathered scraps of conversation that passed in their hearing, to retail them in letters sent home; "they did not know," they said, "what might be of use." Later, some of these letters were intercepted by the General Government, and sent back from Washington to Madame Ricard. All this told me much of the depth and breadth of feeling among the community of which these girls formed a part; and my knowledge of my father and mother, Aunt Gary and Preston, and others, told me more. I began to pray that God would not let war come upon the land.

Then there was a day, in January, I think, when a bit of public news was read out in presence of the whole family; a thing that rarely happened. It was evening, and we were all in the parlour with our work. I forget who was the reader, but I remember the words: "'The steamer, Star of the West with two hundred and fifty United States troops on board for Fort Sumter, was fired into' (I forget the day) 'by the batteries near Charleston.' Young ladies, do you hear that? The steamer was fired into. That is the beginning."

We looked at each other, we girls; startled, sorry, awed, with a strange glance of defiance from some eyes, while some flowed over with tears, and some were eager with a feeling that was not displeasure. All were silent at first. Then whispers began.

"I told you so," said Sally.

"Well, they have begun it," said Macy, who was a native of New York.

"Of course. What business had the Star of the West to be carrying those troops there? South Carolina can take care of her own forts."

"Daisy Randolph, you look as solemn as a preacher," said another. "Which side are you on?"

"She is on the right side," said another.

"Of course," said Sally. "She is the daughter of a Southern gentleman."

"I am not on the side of those who fire the first shot," I said.

"There is no other way," said Sally, coolly. "If a rat comes in your way you must shoot him. I knew it had got to come. I have heard my uncle talk enough about that."

"But what will be the end of it?" said another.

"Pooh! It will end like smoke. The Yankees do not like fighting—they would rather be excused, if you please. Their forte is quite in another line—out of the way of powder."

I wondered if that was true. I thought of Thorold, and of Major Blunt. I was troubled; and when I went to see Miss Cardigan, next day, I found she could give me little comfort.

"I don't know, my dear," she said, "what they may be left to do. They're just daft, down there; clean daft."

"If they fight, we shall be obliged to fight," I said, not liking to ask her about Northern courage; and, indeed, she was a Scotswoman, and what should she know?

"Aye, just that," she replied; "and fighting between the two parts of one land is just the worst fighting there can be. Pray it may not come, Daisy; but those people are quite daft."

The next letters from my mother spoke of my coming out to them as soon as the school year should be over. The country was likely to be disturbed, she said; and it would not suit with my father's health to come home just now. As soon as the school year should be over, and Dr. Sandford could find a proper opportunity for me to make the journey, I should come.

I was very glad; yet I was not all glad. I wished they had been able to come to me. I was not, I hardly knew why I was not quite ready to quit America while these troubles threatened. And as days went on, and the cloud grew blacker, my feeling of unwillingness increased. The daily prints were full of fresh instances of the seizure of United States property, of the secession of New States; then the Secession Congress met, and elected Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens their president and vice-president; and rebellion was duly organized.

Jefferson Davis! How the name took me back to the summer parade on the West Point plain, and my first view of that smooth, sinister, ill-conditioned face. Now he was heading rebellion. Where would Dr. Sandford, and Mr. Thorold, and Preston be? How far would the rebels carry their work? and what opposition would be made to it? Again I asked Miss Cardigan.

"It's beyond me, Daisy," she said. "I suppose it will depend very much on whether we've got the right man to head us or no; and that nobody can tell till we try. This man, Buchanan, that is over us at present, he is no better than a bit of cotton-wool. I am going to take a look at Mr. Lincoln as he comes through, and see what I think of him."

"When is he coming?"

"They say to-day," said Miss Cardigan. "There'll be an uncommon crowd, but I'll risk it."

A great desire seized me, that I might see him too. I consulted with Miss Cardigan. School hours were over at three; I could get away then, I thought; and by studying the programme of the day we found it possible that it would not be too late then for our object. So it proved; and I have always been glad of it ever since.

Miss Cardigan and I went forth and packed ourselves in the dense crowd which had gathered and filled all the way by which the President-elect was expected to pass. A quiet and orderly and most respectable crowd it was. Few Irish, few of the miserable of society, who come out only for a spectacle; there were the yeomanry and the middle classes, men of business, men of character and some substance, who were waiting, like us, to see what promise for the future there might be in the aspect of our new chief. Waiting patiently; and we could only wait patiently like them. I thought of Preston's indignation if he could have seen me, and Dr. Sandford's ready negative on my being there; but well were these thoughts put to flight when the little cavalcade for which we were looking hove in sight and drew near. Intense curiosity and then profound satisfaction seized me. The strong, grave, kindly lineaments of the future Head of the Country gave me instantly a feeling of confidence, which I never lost in all the time that followed. That was, confidence in his honesty and goodness; but another sort of trust was awakened by the keen, searching, shrewd glances of those dark eyes, which seemed to penetrate the masses of human intelligences surrounding him, and seek to know what manner of material he might find them at need. He was not thinking of himself, that was plain; and the homely, expressive features got a place in my heart from that time. The little cavalcade passed on from us; the crowd melted away, and Miss Cardigan and I came slowly again up Fifth Avenue.

"Yon's a mon!" quoth Miss Cardigan, speaking, as she did in moments of strong feeling, with a little reminder of her Scottish origin.

"Didn't you like him?" I rejoined.

"I always like a man when I see him," said my friend. "He had need be that, too, for he has got a man's work to do."

And it soon appeared that she spoke true. I watched every action, and weighed every word of Mr. Lincoln now, with a strange interest. I thought great things depended on him. I was glad when he determined to send supplies into Fort Sumter. I was sure that he was right; but I held my breath, as it were, to see what South Carolina would do. The twelfth of April told us.

"So they have done it, Daisy!" said Miss Cardigan, that evening. "They are doing it, rather. They have been firing at each other all day."

"Well, Major Anderson must defend his fort," I said. "That is his duty."

"No doubt," said Miss Cardigan; "but you look pale, Daisy, my bairn. You are from those quarters yourself. Is there anybody in that neighbourhood that is dear to you?"

I had the greatest difficulty not to burst into tears, by way of answer, and Miss Cardigan looked concerned at me. I told her there was nobody there I cared for, except some poor coloured people who were in no danger.

"There'll be many a sore heart in the country if this goes on," she said, with a sigh.

"But it will not go on, will it?" I asked. "They cannot take Fort Sumter; do you think so?"

"I know little about it," said my friend, soberly. "I am no soldier. And we never know what is best, Daisy. We must trust the Lord, my dear, to unravel these confusions."

And the next night the little news-boys in the streets were crying out the "Fall of Fort Sum—ter!" It rang ominously in my heart. The rebels had succeeded so far; and they would go on. Yes, they would go on now, I felt assured; unless some very serious check should be given them. Could the Yankees give that? I doubted it. Yet their cause was the cause of right, and justice, and humanity; but the right does not always at first triumph, whatever it may do in the end; and good swords, and good shots, and the spirit of a soldier, are things that are allowed to carry their force with them. I knew the South had these. What had the North?

Even in our school seclusion, we felt the breath of the tremendous excitement which swayed the public mind next day. Not bluster, nor even passion, but the stir of the people's heart. As we walked to church, we could hear it in half caught words of those we passed by, see it in the grave, intense air which characterised groups and faces; feel it in the atmosphere, which was heavy with indignation and gathering purpose. It was said no Sunday like that had been known in the city. Within our own little community, if parties ran high, they were like those outside, quiet; but when alone, the Southern girls testified an exultation that jarred painfully upon my ears.

"Daisy don't care."

"Yes, I care," I said.

"For shame not to be glad! You see, it is glorious. We have it all our own way. The impertinence of trying to hold our forts for us!"

"I don't see anything glorious in fighting," I said.

"Not when you are attacked?"

"We were not attacked," I said. "South Carolina fired the first guns."

"Good for her!" said Sally. "Brave little South Carolina! Nobody will meddle with her and come off without cutting his fingers."

"Nobody did meddle with her," I asserted. "It was she who meddled, to break the laws and fight against the government."

"What government?" said Sally. "Are we slaves, that we should be ruled by a government we don't choose? We will have our own. Do you think South Carolina and Virginia gentlemen are going to live under a rail-splitter for a President? and take orders from him?"

"What do you mean by a 'rail-splitter'?"

"I mean this Abe Lincoln the northern mudsills have picked up to make a President of. He used to get his living by splitting rails for a Western fence, Daisy Randolph."

"But if he is President, he is President," I said.

"For those that like him. We won't have him. Jefferson Davis is my President. And all I can do to help him I will. I can't fight; I wish I could. My brother and my cousins and my uncle will, though, that's one comfort; and what I can do I will."

"Then I think you are a traitor," I said.

I was hated among the Southern girls from that day. Hated with a bitter, violent hatred, which had indeed little chance to show itself, but was manifested in the scornful, intense avoidance of me. The bitterness of it is surprising to me even now. I cared not very much for it. I was too much engrossed with deeper interests of the time, both public and private. The very next day came the President's call for seventy-five thousand men; and the next, the answer of the governor of Kentucky, that "Kentucky would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." I saw this in the paper in the library; the other girls had no access to the general daily news, or I knew there would have been shoutings of triumph over Governor Magoffin. Other governors of other States followed his example. Jefferson Davis declared in a proclamation that letters of marque and reprisal would be issued. Everything wore the aspect of thickening strife.

My heart grew very heavy over these signs of evil, fearing I knew not what for those whom I cared about. Indeed, I would not stop to think what I feared. I tried to bury my fears in my work. Letters from my mother became very explicit now; she said that troublesome times were coming in the country, and she would like me to be out of it. After a little while, when the independence of the South should be assured, we would all come home and be happy together. Meantime, as soon after the close of the school year as Dr. Sandford could find a good chance for me, I was to come out to them at Lausanne, where my mother thought they would be by that time.

So I studied with all my strength, with the double motive of gaining all I could and of forgetting what was going on in the political world. Music and French, my mother particularly desired that I should excel in; and I gave many hours to my piano, as many as possible, and talked with Mlle. Genevieve, whenever she would let me. And she was very fond of me and fond of talking to me; it was she who kept for me my library privilege. And my voice was good, as it had promised to be. I had the pleasure of feeling that I was succeeding in what I most wished to attain. It was succeeding over the heads of my schoolfellows; and that earned me wages that were not pleasant among a portion of my companions. Faustina St. Clair was back among us; she would perhaps have forgiven if she could have forgotten me; but my headship had been declared ever since the time of the bronze standish, and even rivalry had been long out of the question. So the old feud was never healed; and now, between the unfriendliness of her party and the defection of all the Southern girls, I was left in a great minority of popular favour. It could not be helped. I studied the harder. I had unlimited favour with all my teachers, and every indulgence I asked for.

The news of the attack in Baltimore upon the Massachusetts troops passing through the city, and Governor Andrew's beautiful telegram, shook me out of my pre-occupation. It shook me out of all quiet for a day. Indignation, and fear, and sorrow rolled through my heart. The passions that were astir among men, the mad results to which they were leading, the possible involvement of several of those whom I loved, a general trembling of evil in the air, made study difficult for the moment. What signified the course and fate of nations hundreds of years ago? Our own course and fate filled the horizon. What signified the power or beauty of my voice, when I had not the heart to send it up and down like a bird any longer? Where was Preston, and Dr. Sandford, and Ransom, and what would become of Magnolia? In truth, I did not know what had become of Ransom. I had not heard from him or of him in a long time. But these thoughts would not do. I drove them away. I resolved to mind my work and not read the papers, if I could help it, and not think about politics or my friends' course in them. I could do nothing. And in a few months I should be away, out of the land.

I kept my resolve pretty well. Indeed, I think nothing very particular happened to disturb it for the next two or three weeks. I succeeded in filling my head with work and being very happy in it. That is, whenever I could forget more important things.



CHAPTER XIX.

ENTERED FOR THE WAR.

One evening, I think before the end of April, I asked permission to spend the evening at Miss Cardigan's. I had on hand a piece of study for which I wanted to consult certain books which I knew were in her library. Mlle. Genevieve gave me leave gladly.

"You do study too persevering, m'amie," she said. "Go, and stop to study for a little while. You are pale. I am afraid your doctor—ce bon Monsieur le docteur—will scold us all by and by. Go, and do not study."

But I determined to have my play and my study too.

As I passed through Miss Cardigan's hall, the parlour door, standing half open let me see that a gentleman was with her. Not wishing to interrupt any business that might be going on, and not caring also to be bored with it myself, I passed by and went into the inner room where the books were. I would study now, I thought, and take my pleasure with my dear old friend by and by, when she was at leisure. I had found my books, and had thrown myself down on the floor with one, when a laugh that came from the front room laid a spell upon my powers of study. The book fell from my hands; I sat bolt upright, every sense resolved into that of hearing. What, and who had that been? I listened. Another sound of a word spoken, another slight inarticulate suggestion of laughter; and I knew with an assured knowledge that my friend Cadet Thorold, and no other, was the gentleman in Miss Cardigan's parlour with whom she had business. I sat up and forgot my books. The first impulse was to go in immediately and show myself. I can hardly tell what restrained me. I remembered that Miss Cardigan must have business with him, and I had better not interrupt it. But those sounds of laughter had not been very business-like, either. Nor were they business words which came through the open door. I never thought or knew I was listening. I only thought it was Thorold, and held my breath to hear, or rather to feel. My ears seemed sharpened beyond all their usual faculty.

"And you haven't gone and fallen in love, callant, meanwhile, just to complicate affairs?" said the voice of Miss Cardigan.

"I shall never fall in love," said Thorold, with (I suppose) mock gravity. His voice sounded so.

"Why not?"

"I require too much."

"It's like your conceit!" said Miss Cardigan. "Now, what is it that you require? I would like to know; that is, if you know yourself. It appears that you have thought about it."

"I have thought, till I have got it all by heart," said Thorold. "The worst is, I shall never find it in this world."

"That's likely. Come, lad, paint your picture, and I'll tell you if I know where to look," said Miss Cardigan.

"And then you'll search for me?"

"I dinna ken if you deserve it," said Miss Cardigan.

"I don't deserve it, of course," said Thorold. "Well—I have painted the likeness a good many times. The first thing is a pair of eyes as deep and grey as our mountain lakes."

"I never heard that your Vermont lakes were grey," said Miss Cardigan.

"Oh, but they are! when the shadow of the mountains closes them in. It is not cold grey, but purple and brown, the shadow of light, as it were; the lake is in shadow. Only, if a bit of blue does show itself there, it is the very heaven."

"I hope that it is not going to be in poetry?" said Miss Cardigan's voice, sounding dry and amused. "What is the next thing? It is a very good picture of eyes."

"The next thing is a mouth that makes you think of nothing but kissing it; the lines are so sweet, and so mobile, and at the same time so curiously subdued. A mouth that has learned to smile when things don't go right; and that has learned the lesson so well, you cannot help thinking it must have often known things go wrong; to get the habit so well, you know."

"Eh?—Why, boy!"—cried Miss Cardigan.

"Do you know anybody like it?" said Thorold, laughing. "If you do, you are bound to let me know where, you understand."

"What lies between the eyes and mouth?" said Miss Cardigan. "There goes more to a picture."

"Between the eyes and mouth," said Thorold, "there is sense and dignity, and delicacy, and refinement to a fastidious point; and a world of strength of character in the little delicate chin."

"Character—that shows in the mouth," said Miss Cardigan, slowly.

"I told you so," said Thorold. "That is what I told you. Truth, and love, and gentleness, all sit within those little red lips; and a great strength of will, which you cannot help thinking has borne something to try it. The brow is like one of our snowy mountain tops with the sun shining on it."

"And the lady's figure is like a pine-tree, isn't it? It sounds gay, as if you'd fallen in love with Nature, and so personified and imaged her in human likeness. Is it real humanity?"

Thorold laughed his gay laugh. "The pine-tree will do excellently, Aunt Catherine," he said. "No better embodiment of stately grace could be found."

My ears tingled. "Aunt Catherine?" Aunt! Then Thorold must be her relation, her nephew; then he was not come on business; then he would stay to tea. I might as well show myself. But, I thought, if Thorold had some other lady so much in his mind (for I was sure his picture must be in a portrait), he would not care so very much about seeing me, as I had at first fancied he would. However, I could not go away; so I might as well go in; it would not do to wait longer. The evening had quite fallen now. It was April, as I said, but a cold, raw spring day, and had been like that for several days. Houses were chill; and in Miss Cardigan's grate a fine fire of Kennal coals were blazing, making its red illumination all over the room and the two figures who sat in front of it. She had had a grate put in this winter. There was no other light, only that soft red glow and gloom, under favour of which I went in and stood almost beside them before they perceived me. I did not speak to Miss Cardigan. I remember my words were, "How do you do, Mr. Thorold?"—in a very quiet kind of a voice; for I did not now expect him to be very glad. But I was surprised at the change my words made. He sprang up, his eyes flashing a sort of shower of sparks over me, gladness in every line of his face, and surprise, and a kind of inexpressible deference in his manner.

"Daisy!" he exclaimed. "Miss Randolph!"

"Daisy!" echoed Miss Cardigan. "My dear—do you two know each other? Where did you come from?"

I think I did not answer. I am sure Thorold did not. He was caring for me, placing his chair nearer his aunt, and putting me into it, before he let go the hand he had taken. Then, drawing up another chair on the other side of me, he sat down, looking at me (I thought afterwards, I only felt at the moment), as if I had been some precious wonder; the Koh-i-noor diamond, or anything of that sort.

"Where did you come from?" was his first question.

"I have been in the house a little while," I said. "I thought at first Miss Cardigan had somebody with her on business, so I would not come in."

"It is quite true, Daisy," said Miss Cardigan; "it is somebody on business."

"Nothing private about it, though," said Thorold, smiling at me. "But where in the world did you and Aunt Catherine come together?"

"And what call have ye to search into it?" said Miss Cardigan's good-humoured voice. "I know a great many bodies, callant, that you know not."

"I know this one, though," said Thorold. "Miss Randolph—won't you speak? for Aunt Catherine is in no mood to tell me—have you two known each other long?"

"It seems long," I said. "It is not very long."

"Since last summer?"

"Certainly!"

"If that's the date of your acquaintanceship," said Miss Cardigan, "we're auld friends to that. Is all well, Daisy?"

"All quite well, ma'am. I came to do a bit of study I wanted in your books, and to have a nice time with you, besides."

"And here is this fellow in the way. But we cannot turn him out, Daisy; he is going fast enough; on what errand, do you think, is he bent?"

I had not thought about it till that minute. Something, some thread of the serious, in Miss Cardigan's voice, made me look suddenly at Thorold. He had turned his eyes from me and had bent them upon the fire, all merriment gone out of his face, too. It was thoroughly grave.

"What are you going to do, Mr. Thorold?" I asked.

"Do you remember a talk we had down on Flirtation Walk one day last summer, when you asked me about possible political movements at the South, and I asked you what you would do?"

"Yes," I said, my heart sinking.

"The time has come," he said, facing round upon me.

"And you—?"

"I shall be on my way to Washington in a few days. Men are wanted now—all the men that have any knowledge to be useful. I may not be very useful. But I am going to try."

"I thought"—it was not quite easy to speak, for I was struggling with something which threatened to roughen my voice—"I thought you did not graduate till June?"

"Not regularly; not usually; but things are extraordinary this year. We graduate and go on to Washington at once."

I believe we were all silent a few minutes.

"Daisy," said Miss Cardigan, "you have nobody that is dear to you likely to be engaged in the fray—if there is one?"

"I don't know—" I said, rather faintly. I remember I said it; I cannot tell why, for I did know. I knew that Preston and Ransom were both likely to be in the struggle, even if Ransom had been at the moment at the opposite side of the world. But then Thorold roused up and began to talk. He talked to divert us, I think. He told us of things that concerned himself and his class personally, giving details to which we listened eagerly; and he went on from them to things and people in the public line, of which and of whom neither Miss Cardigan nor I had known the thousandth part so much before. We sat and listened, Miss Cardigan often putting in a question, while the warm still glow of the firelight shed over us and all the room its assurance of peace and quiet, woven and compounded of life-long associations. Thorold sat before us and talked, and we looked at him and listened in the fire-shine; and my thoughts made swift sideway flights every now and then from this peace and glow of comfort, and from Thorold's talk, to the changes of the camp and the possible coming strife; spectres of war, guns and swords, exposure and wounds—and sickness—and the battlefield—what could I tell? and Miss Cardigan's servant put another lump of coal on the fire, and Thorold presently broke it, and the jet of illumination sprang forth, mocking and yet revealing in its sweet home glow my visions of terror. They were but momentary visions; I could not bear, of course, to look steadily at them; they were spectres that came and went with a wave of a hand, in a jet of flame, or the shadow of an opening door; but they went and came; and I saw many things in Thorold's face that night besides the manly lines of determination and spirit, the look of thought and power, and the hover of light in his eye when it turned to me. I don't know what Miss Cardigan saw; but several times in the evening I heard her sigh; a thing very unusual and notable with her. Again and again I heard it, a soft long breath.

I gave it no heed at the time. My eyes and thoughts were fixed on the other member of the party; and I was like one in a dream. I walked in a dream; till we went into the other room to tea, and I heard Miss Cardigan say, addressing her nephew—

"Sit there, Christian."

I was like one in a dream, or I should have known what this meant. I did know two minutes afterwards. But at the moment, falling in with some of my thoughts, the word made me start and look at Thorold. I cannot tell what was in my look; I know what was in my heart; the surprised inquiry and the yearning wish. Thorold's face flushed. He met my eyes with an intense recognition and inquiry in his own, and then, I am almost sure, his were dim. He set my chair for me at the table, and took hold of me and put me in it with a very gentle touch that seemed to thank me.

"That is my name, Miss Randolph," he said, "the name given me by my parents."

"You'll earn it yet, boy," said Miss Cardigan. "But the sooner the better."

There was after that a very deep gravity upon us all for the first minutes at the table. I wondered to myself, how people can go on drinking tea and eating bread and butter through everything; yet they must, and even I was doing it at the moment, and not willing to forego the occupation. By degrees the wonted course of things relieved our minds, which were upon too high a strain. It appeared that Thorold was very hungry, having missed his dinner somehow; and his aunt ordered up everything in the house for his comfort, in which I suppose she found her own. And then Thorold made me eat with him. I was sure I did not want it, but that made no difference. Things were prepared for me and put upon my plate, and a soft little command laid on me to do with them what I was expected to do. It was not like the way Dr. Sandford used to order me, nor in the least like Preston's imperiousness, which I could withstand well enough; there was something in it which nullified all my power and even will to resist, and I was as submissive as possible. Thorold grew very bright again as the meal went on, and began to talk in a somewhat livelier strain than he had been in before tea; and I believe he did wile both his aunt and me out of the sad or grave thoughts we had been indulging. I know that I was obliged to laugh, as I was obliged to eat. Thorold had his own way, and seemed to like it. Even his aunt was amused and interested, and grew lively, like herself. With all that, through the whole supper-time I had an odd feeling of her being on one side; it seemed to be only Thorold and I really there; and in all Thorold was doing and through all he was talking, I had a curious sense that he was occupied only with me. It was not that he said so much directly to me or looked so much at me; I do not know how I got the feeling. There was Miss Cardigan at the head of the table busy and talking as usual, clever and kind; yet the air seemed to be breathed only by Thorold and me.

"And how soon, lad," Miss Cardigan broke out suddenly, when a moment's lull in the talk had given her a chance, "how soon will ye be off to that region of disturbance whither ye are going?"

"Washington?" said Thorold. "Just as soon as our examination can be pushed through; in a very few days now."

"You'll come to me by the way, for another look at you, in your officer's uniform?"

"Uniform? nobody will have any uniform, I fancy," said Thorold; "nobody has any time to think of that. No, Aunt Catherine, and I shall not see you, either. I expect we shall rush through without the loss of a train. I can't stop. I don't care what clothes I wear to get there."

"How came you to be here now, if you are in such a hurry?"

"Nothing on earth would have brought me, but the thing that did bring me," said Thorold. "I was subpoenaed down, to give my evidence in a trial. I must get back again without loss of a minute; should have gone to-night, if there had been a train that stopped. I am very glad there was no train that stopped!"

We were all silent for a minute; till the door-bell rang, and the servant came, announcing Mr. Bunsen, to see Miss Cardigan about the tenant houses. Miss Cardigan went off through the open doors that led to the front parlour; and standing by the fire, I watched her figure diminishing in the long distance till it passed into Mr. Bunsen's presence and disappeared. Mr. Thorold and I stood silently on either side of the hearth, looking into the fire, while the servant was clearing the table. The cheerful, hospitable little table, round which we had been so cheerful at least for the moment, was dismantled already, and the wonted cold gleam of the mahogany seemed to tell me that cheer was all over. The talk of the uniform had overset me. All sorts of visions of what it signified, what it portended, where it would go, what it would be doing, were knocking at the door of my heart, and putting their heads in. Before tea these visions had come and vanished; often enough, to be sure; now they came and stayed. I was very quiet, I am certain of that; I was as certainly very sober, with a great and growing sadness at my heart. I think Thorold was grave, too, though I hardly looked at him. We did not speak to each other all the time the servant was busy in the room. We stood silent before the fire. The study I had come to do had all passed away out of my mind, though the books were within three feet of me. I was growing sadder and sadder every minute.

"Things have changed, since we talked so lightly last summer of what might be," Thorold said at last. And he said it in a meditative way, as if he were pondering something.

"Yes," I assented.

"The North does not wish for war. The South have brought it upon themselves."

"Yes," I said again, wondering a little what was coming.

"However disagreeable my duty may be, it is my duty; and there is no shirking it."

"No," I said. "Of course."

"And if your friends are on one side and I on the other,—it is not my fault, Miss Randolph."

"No," I said; "not at all."

"Then you do not blame me for taking the part I must take?"

"No," I said. "You must take it."

"Are you sorry I take it?" said Thorold with a change of tone, and coming a step nearer.

"Sorry?" I said, and I looked up for an instant. "No; how could I be sorry? it is your duty. It is right." But as I looked down again I had the greatest difficulty not to burst into tears. I felt as though my heart would break in two with its burden of pain. It cost a great effort to stand still and quiet, without showing anything.

"What is it, then?" said Thorold; and with the next words I knew he had come close to my side and was stooping his head down to my face, while his voice dropped. "What is it, Daisy?—Is it—O Daisy, I love you better than anything else in the world, except my duty! Daisy, do you love me?"

Nothing could have been more impossible to me, I think, than to answer a word; but, indeed, Thorold did not seem to want it. As he questioned me, he had put his arm round me and drawn me nearer and nearer, stooping his face to me, till his lips took their own answer at mine; indeed, took answer after answer, and then, in a sort of passion of mute joy, kissed my face all over. I could not forbid him; between excitement and sorrow and happiness and shame, I could do nothing. The best I could do was to hide my face; but the breast of that grey coat was a strange hiding-place for it. With that inconsistent mingling of small things with great in one's perceptions, which everybody knows, I remember the soft feel of the fine grey cloth along with the clasp of Thorold's arms and the touch of his cheek resting upon my hair. And we stood so, quite still, for what seemed both a long and a short time, in which I think happiness got the upper hand with me, and pain for the moment was bid into the background. At last Thorold raised his head and bade me lift up mine.

"Look up, darling," he said; "look up, Daisy! let me see your face. Look up, Daisy—we have only a minute, and everything in the world to say to each other. Daisy—I want to see you."

I think it was one of the most difficult little things I ever had in my life to do, to raise my face and let him look at it; but I knew it must be done, and I did it. One glance at his I ventured. He was smiling at me; there was a flush upon his cheek; his eye had a light in it, and with that a glow of tenderness which was different from anything I had ever seen; and it was glittering, too, I think, with another sort of suffusion. His hand came smoothing down my hair and then touching my cheek while he looked at me.

"What are you going to do with yourself now?" he said softly.

"I am going on with my studies for another month or two."

"And you belong to me, Daisy?"

"Yes."

He bent his head and kissed my brow. There is an odd difference of effect between a kiss on the lips and on the forehead, or else it was a difference in the manner. This seemed a sort of taking possession or setting a seal; and it gave me a new feeling of something almost like awe, which I had never associated with the grey coat or with its wearer before. Along with that came another impression that I suppose most women know, and know how sweet it is; the sense of an enveloping protection. Not that I had not been protected all my life; but my mother's had been the protection of authority; my father's also, in some measure; Dr. Sandford's was emphatically that of a guardian; he guarded me a little too well. But this new thing that was stealing into my heart, with its subtle delight, was the protection of a champion; of one who set me and mine above all other interests or claims in the world, and who would guard me as if he were a part of myself, only stronger. Altogether Thorold seemed to me different from what he had been the last summer; there was a gravity now in his face and air at times that was new and even stern; the gravity of a man taking stern life work upon him. I felt all this in a minute, while Thorold was smiling down into my face.

"And you will write to me?" he said.

"Yes."

"And I will write to you. And I belong to you, Daisy, and to no other. All I have is yours, and all that I am is yours—after my duty; you may dispose of me, pretty one, just as you like. You would not have that put second, Daisy."

A great yearning came over me, so great and strong that it almost took away my breath. I fancy it spoke in my eyes, for Thorold's face grew very grave, I remember, as he looked at me. But I must speak it more plainly than so, at any costs, breath or no breath, and I must not wait.

"Christian," I whispered, "won't you earn your right to your name?"

He pressed his lips upon mine by way of answer first, and then gave me a quick and firm "Yes." I certainly thought he had found a mouth he was talking of a little while ago. But at that instant the sound of the distant house door closing, and then of steps coming out from the parlour, made me know that Miss Cardigan's business was over, and that she was returning to us. I wanted to free myself from Thorold's arm, but he would not let me; on the contrary, held me closer, and half turned to meet Miss Cardigan as she came in. Certainly men are very different from women. There we stood, awaiting her; and I felt very much ashamed.

"Come on, Aunt Catherine," Thorold said, as she paused at the door,—"come in, come in, and kiss her—this little darling is mine."

Miss Cardigan came in slowly. I could not look up.

"Kiss her, Aunt Catherine," he repeated; "she is mine."

And to my great dismay he set her the example; but I think it was partly to reassure me, and cover my confusion, which he saw.

"I have kissed Daisy very often before now," said Miss Cardigan. I thought I discerned some concern in her voice.

"Then come, do it again," said Thorold, laughing. "You never kissed her as anything belonging to me, Aunt Catherine."

And he fairly laid me in Miss Cardigan's arms, till we kissed each other as he desired. But Miss Cardigan's gravity roused me out of my confusion. I was not ashamed before her; only before him.

"Now, Aunt Catherine," he said, pulling up a comfortable arm chair to the corner of the hearth, "sit there. And Daisy—come here!"

He put me into the fellow chair; and then built up the wood in the fireplace till we had a regular illumination. Then drew himself up before the fire, and looked at his aunt.

"It's like you!" broke out Miss Cardigan. "Ever since you were born, I think, you did what you liked, and had what you liked; and threw over everything to get at the best."

"On the contrary," said Thorold, "I was always of a very contented disposition."

"Contented with your own will, then," said his aunt. "And now, do you mean to tell me that you have got this prize—this prize—it's a first class, Christian—for good and for certain to yourself?"

I lifted my eyes one instant, to see the sparkles in Thorold's eyes; they were worth seeing.

"You don't think you deserve it?" Miss Cardigan went on.

"I do not think I deserve it," said Thorold. "But I think I will."

"I know what that means," said his aunt. "You will get worldly glory—just a bit or two more of gold on your coat—to match you with one of the Lord's jewels, that are to be 'all glorious within'; and you think that will fit you to own her."

"Aunt Catherine," said Thorold, "I do not precisely think that gold lace is glory. But I mean that I will do my duty. A man can do no more."

"Some would have said 'a man can do no less,'" said Miss Cardigan, turning to me. "But you are right, lad; more than our duty we can none of us do; where all is owing, less will not be overpay. But whatever do you think her father will say to you?"

"I will ask him when the time comes," said Thorold, contentedly. His tone was perfect, both modest and manly. Truth to say, I could not quite share his content in looking forward to the time he spoke of; but that was far ahead, and it was impossible not to share his confidence. My father and my mother had been practically not my guardians during six and a half long years; I had got out of the habit of looking first to them.

"And what are you going to do now in Washington?" said his aunt. "You may as well sit down and tell us."

"I don't know. Probably I shall be put to drill new recruits. All these seventy-five thousand men that the President has called for, won't know how to handle a gun or do anything else."

"And what is he going to do with these seventy-five thousand men, Christian?"

"Put down treason, if he can. Don't you realize yet that we have a civil war on our hands, Aunt Catherine? The Southern States are mustering and sending their forces; we must meet them, or give up the whole question; that is, give up the country."

"And what is it that they will try to do?" said Miss Cardigan. "It is a mystery to me what they want; but I suppose I know; only bad men are a mystery to me always."

"They will try to defy the laws," said Thorold. "We will try to see them executed."

"They seem very fierce," said Miss Cardigan; "to judge by what they say."

"And do," added Thorold. "I think there is a sort of madness in Southern blood."

He spoke with a manner of disgustful emphasis. I looked up at him to see an expression quite in keeping with his words. Miss Cardigan cried out—

"Hey, lad! ye're confident, surely, to venture your opinions so plainly and so soon!"

His face changed, as if sunlight had been suddenly poured over it. He came kneeling on one knee before me, taking my hand and kissing it, and laughing.

"And I see ye're not confident without reason!" added Miss Cardigan. "Daisy'll just let ye say your mind, and no punish you for it."

"But it is true, Miss Cardigan," I said, turning to her. I wished I had held my tongue the next minute, for the words were taken off my lips, as it were. It is something quite different from eating your own words, which I have heard of as not being pleasant; mine seemed to be devoured by somebody else.

"But is it true they are coming to attack Washington?" Miss Cardigan went on, when we had all done laughing. "I read it in the prints; and it seems to me I read every other thing there."

"I am afraid you read too many prints," said Thorold. "You are thinking of 'hear both sides,' Aunt Catherine? You must know there is but one side to this matter. There never are two sides to treason."

"That's true," said Miss Cardigan. "But about Washington, lad? I saw an extract from a letter written from that city, by a lady, and she said the place was in a terror; she said the President sleeps with a hundred men, armed, in the east room, to protect him from the Southern army; and keeps a sentinel before his bedroom door; and often goes clean out of the White House and sleeps somewhere else, in his fear."

I had never seen Thorold laugh as he did then. And he asked his aunt "where she had seen that extract?"

"It was in one of the papers—it was in an extract itself, I'm thinking."

"From a Southern paper," said Thorold.

"Well, I believe it was."

"I have seen extracts, too," said Thorold. "They say, Alexander H. Stephens is counselling the rebels to lay hold on Washington."

"Well, sit down and tell us what you do know, and how to understand things," said Miss Cardigan. "I don't talk to anybody, much, about politics."

So Thorold did as he was asked. He sat down on the other side of me, and with my hand in his, talked to us both. We went over the whole ground of the few months past, of the work then doing and preparing, of what might reasonably be looked for in both the South and the North. He said he was not very wise in the matter; but he was infinitely more informed than we; and we listened as to the most absorbing of all tales, till the night was far worn. A sense of the gravity and importance of the crisis; a consciousness that we were embarked in a contest of the most stubborn character, the end of which no man might foretell, pressed itself more and more on my mind as the night and the talk grew deeper. If I may judge from the changes in Miss Cardigan's face, it was the same with her. The conclusion was, the North was gathering and concentrating all her forces to meet the trial that was coming; and the young officers of the graduating class at the Military Academy had been ordered to the seat of war a little before their time of study was out, their help being urgently needed.