her growing interest in
the young lieutenant was anything more than a "school-girl" fancy. She
was old enough, however, to take his thoughtless speech _au serieux_,
and it hurt her.

"Papa!" was her one, indignant word of remonstrance. She would not even
defend herself against such accusation.

"I know!--I understand--I didn't mean it except as the merest joke, my
child," he hurriedly interposed. "I thought you'd laugh at the idea."

But she would not speak of it, and he quickly sought to change the
subject, never even asking other reason for her apparent aversion to
Miss Forrest. It was true that the speedy coming of Dr. and Mrs. Graham
would make it necessary that he should open his doors to an officer of
his own corps and profession.

For a few days, however, that thoughtless speech seemed to rankle in
his gentle daughter's soul. Never before had she known hesitancy or
embarrassment in her daily, hourly chat with that fondly loved father.
Now there was a topic that she could not approach. Hitherto she used to
tell him all about her walks and talks with Mr. McLean. That young
gentleman, indeed, had accompanied them the evening they went to the
major's to call upon the latest arrival among the refugees, but now she
shrank from mentioning either Miss Forrest or him. For several days
after that talk it seemed as though she avoided not only the subjects,
but the two persons themselves. At least both of them would have sworn
to the latter part of the statement, and McLean was at his wit's end to
account for it.

Meantime, there being nowhere else to go, the Forrests had moved into
"Bedlam" in the same hall-way with the family of Lieutenant Post, also
refugees from Robinson; but while the Posts occupied rooms on the lower
floor, the Forrests took the four chambers overhead. Two young cavalry
officers were the occupants up to the outbreak of the campaign, but
all their furniture and "traps" were summarily moved over to the
quartermaster's storehouse by order of the commanding officer,--and one
trip of one wagon did the entire job,--for the emergency was one that
called for action, and Major Miller was a man to meet it. The Forrests
and the Posts, therefore, were now sole occupants of the south end of
"Bedlam," and Lieutenant McLean's two rooms were on the ground-floor of
the north end. The hall-ways ran entirely through from east to west,
giving on the west side into court-yards separated from each other by a
high boa