h circumstances? The realization that he had won
the fervent love of that fresh, pure, exquisite young heart was enough
to thrill even a nature so utterly selfish as Willett's. It is the
shallowest soul that most readily thrills, and what could be sweeter
than the shy, yet rapturous love in the downcast eyes of Lilian Archer,
when, as he had implored her mother, she was led that afternoon to the
darkened room in which he sat, and, like knight of old, he took and
bent over and kissed her trembling little hand. "I would kneel, too,"
he murmured, even as her mother stood beside her, with swimming eyes,
and as he looked up into the blushing face his own eyes were filled
with unfeigned homage, admiration, even love, his deep voice with
emotion that was sweet to woman's ear. "Heaven never made a lovelier
lover than Hal Willett," once said a famous belle and beauty. "That's
why so many of us like to listen."

But these earnest, honest, inexperienced two--the whole-hearted army
wife who had lived well-nigh quarter of a century in the undivided
sunshine of an honest soldier's love, and this sweet, simple-hearted
army girl who had never dreamed of or thought to know any love to
compare with this--listened, spellbound, to Willett's almost eloquent
avowal, and the last doubt or fear that Mrs. Archer entertained
vanished like the morning mists before the sunshine.

"I declare," she said to Mrs. Stannard, "I'm almost as much in love as
Lilian," and indeed it seemed so, and might well be so, for never was
queen's courtier so exquisite in deference, homage, tact, as, in that
blissful week of honeymooning, was Hal Willett to the mother of his
dainty love. As for Lilian, the arid, breezeless day was soft with
scented zephyrs; the unpeopled air was athrill with the melody of
countless song birds; the unsightly desert flowered with exquisite
millions of buds and blossoms that craved the caress of her dainty
hand, the pressure of her pretty foot. The sunburned square of the
lonely little garrison, environed with swarthy foemen, cut off from the
world, was alive with heroic knights in glittering armor and ladies in
lace and loveliness, and all were her loyal, devoted subjects,
revelling in her happiness, rejoicing in her smiles, serving her in
homage and on bended knee, their thrice-blessed, beautiful, beloved
queen. God never made a more radiantly happy girl than was our fairy
Lilian that wonderful week. God be thanked it was so utterly bl