ptives to town on his back. But Oncle Jazon for once held his tongue,
being too disgusted for words at not having been permitted to fire a
single shot. What was the use of going to fight and simply meeting and
escorting down the river a lot of non-combatants?

There is something inscrutably delightful about a girl's way of
thinking one thing and doing another. Perversity, thy name is
maidenhood; and maidenhood, thy name is delicious inconsequence! When
Alice heard that Beverley had come back, safe, victorious, to be
greeted as one of the heroes of an important adventure, she immediately
ran to her room frightened and full of vague, shadowy dread, to hide
from him, yet feeling sure that he would not come! Moreover, she busied
herself with the preposterous task of putting on her most attractive
gown--the buff brocade which she wore that evening at the river
house--how long ago it seemed!--when Beverley thought her the
queenliest beauty in the world. And she was putting it on so as to look
her prettiest while hiding from him!

It is a toss-up where happiness will make its nest. The palace, the
hut, the great lady's garden, the wild lass's bower,--skip here, alight
there,--the secret of it may never be told. And love and beauty find
lodgment, by the same inexplicable route, in the same extremes of
circumstances. The wind bloweth where it listeth, finding many a
matchless flower and many a ravishing fragrance in the wildest nooks of
the world.

No sooner did Beverley land at the little wharf than, rushing to his
quarters, he made a hasty exchange of water-soaked apparel for
something more comfortable, and then bolted in the direction of
Roussillon place.

Now Alice knew by the beating of her heart that he was coming. In spite
of all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast to her doubt and
gloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course through her heart and
break in splendid expectation from her eyes, as they looked through the
little unglazed window toward the fort. Nor had she long to wait. He
came up the narrow wet street, striding like a tall actor in the height
of a melodrama, his powerful figure erect as an Indian's, and his face
glowing with the joy of a genuine, impatient lover, who is proud of
himself because of the image he bears in his heart.

When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could cross
the veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned and bedecked
herself; and so, with