d a deep, beautiful flush, and she
grasped the young man by the hand, exclaiming:

"O Cousin James, how glad I am! What a splendid victory it will
be!"

"If it be won!" he said, looking up at her with kindling eyes. "But
there is always an 'if' in the case."

"There will be none when you are in command," answered Kate, with a
ring of proud assurance in her voice. "Had you been commander of
the Louisbourg expedition, Quebec would have been ours by now."

Their eyes met. In hers he read unbounded admiration and faith. It
thrilled him strangely. It brought a look of new purpose into his
face. He held her hand, and she left it lying in his clasp. He was
holding it still when he turned to his mother.

"Are you not glad, mother mine?" he asked gently.

"Oh yes, my son--glad and proud of the honour done you, of the
appreciation shown of your worth and service. But how will you be
able to undergo all that fatigue, and the perils and sufferings of
another voyage? That is what goes to my heart. You are so little
fit for it all!"

"I have found that a man can always be fit for his duty," said
Wolfe gravely. "Is not that so, Kate?"

"With you it is," she answered, with another of her wonderful
glances; and the mother, watching the faces of the pair, rose from
her seat and crept from the room. Her heart was at once glad and
sorrowful, proud and heavy; she felt that she must ease it with a
little weeping before she could talk of this great thing with the
spirit her son would look to find in her.

Wolfe and Kate were left alone together. He got possession of her
other hand. She was standing before him still, a beautiful bloom
upon her face, her eyes shining like stars.

"You are pleased with all this, my Kate?" he asked; and he let the
last words escape him unconsciously.

"Pleased that your country should do you this great honour? Of
course I am pleased. You have deserved it at her hands; yet men do
not always get their deserts in this world."

"No; and you must not think that there are not hundreds of better
and braver men than myself in our army, or that I am a very
wonderful person. I have got the wish of my heart--it has been
granted to me more fully than I ever looked to see it; but how
often do we see in the hour of triumph that there is something
bitter in the cup, something we had not looked to find there. Three
months ago I was burning to sail for Quebec, and now--"

He paused for a moment, and she looked f