ns, he was speedily back in
his lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged.
For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just in
the nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and poor Harris was
nearly gone.

A few weeks later, while the --th is still on duty rounding up the
Indians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener.
There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troops
had had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's arm
is so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months,
and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; and
here, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate in
front of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certain
injunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton,
the major's wife,--who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house in
her father's absence,--has gone in before "to light up," she says,
though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a long
evening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps the
tall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. He
has been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not once
has she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her that
he has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some business
affairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in the
campaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace?

The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yet
she stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines that
overhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walk
homeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she half
hoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight falling
full upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus have
held aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu.
She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so long
has been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of her
injustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes have
told him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read her
eyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all too
interested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Phil