I passed through the Yankee lines."

"Never mind your uniform, my boy. It looks as though it had seen service;
and that is the best recommendation a young man can have to the girls in
these times. You must go, Allan."

"Indeed, sir, I hope you will excuse me for a few days," pleaded Somers.

"Come, Allan! this is not kind of you. Sue has been dying to see you for
a year. She was terribly disappointed when you did not come up with your
regiment, and again when she heard you had joined without calling upon
us. If it had been Owen, she could not have felt worse when you were
captured. Now you want to disappoint her again."

"You need not mention that you have seen me, Mr. Raynes," suggested
Somers.

"Not tell her that you have escaped, when she is fretting about you every
day of her life! That would be too bad."

"You can tell her as much as you please without informing her that you
have seen me."

"I could not tell a lie, Allan. It would choke me," said the old man
solemnly. "You must go with me."

"Let me get another uniform, and it would surprise her when I come."

"No more words, young man. You must go. It is only a short distance,"
replied Mr. Raynes, passing his arm through that of Somers, and walking
towards his house. "It will be the happiest day for Sue which she has
seen for a year."

"Happier for her than it will be for me," thought Somers, who was
disposed to break away from the old man, and make his escape.

By this time, Sue had become an awful bugbear to the poor fellow. In
these days of photographs, it is more than probable that she had a
picture of the original Allan Garland, and the cheat would be discovered
the moment he showed his face. He was deliberating a plan for breaking
away from his persistent friend, when a young lady of eighteen stepped
out from the bushes by the roadside, and hailed the old man.

CHAPTER XI

THE VIRGINIA MAIDEN

"Where have you been, father?" said the young lady in a very sweet and
gentle tone, which, however, sounded like the knell of doom to poor
Somers. "I have been waiting for you half an hour."

But then, perceiving a stranger with her father, she drew back, abashed
at her own forwardness.

"Come here, Sue," said the old man. "Come here; I want to see you."

She advanced timidly from the bushes where she had been partially
concealed from the gaze of the passers-by. She was certainly a very
pleasant and comely-looking maiden; but, if she had b