re--bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellously
well in his cavalry uniform--is Philip Stanley. She knows not what she
says. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has all
fled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is no
need to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no one
knows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelessly
and passively submits.

A little later--just as the train is about to start--they are standing
at the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the --th is playing some
distance up the platform,--a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw the
crowd that way,--and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness is
in her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfast
face. _Something_ must have been said; for he draws her close to his
side and bends over her as though all the world were wrapped up in this
dainty little morsel of womanhood. Suddenly the great train begins
slowly to move. Part they must now, though it be only for a time. He
folds her quickly, unresisting, to his breast. The sweet blue eyes begin
to fill.

"My darling,--my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away the
gathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me you
have kept for me?"

"This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrapped
in tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!--But--I wanted to send
it--the very next day, Philip."

Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. The
glory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own little
girl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot."

THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP.

Just why that young Irishman should have been so balefully branded was
more than the first lieutenant of the troop could understand. To be
sure, the lieutenant's opportunities for observation had been limited.
He had spent some years on detached service in the East, and had joined
his comrades in Arizona but a fortnight ago, and here he was already
becoming rapidly initiated in the science of scouting through
mountain-wilds against the wariest and most treacherous of foemen,--the
Apaches of our Southwestern territory.

Coming, as he had done, direct from a station and duties where
full-dress uniform, lavish expenditure for kid gloves, bouquets, and
Lubin's extracts were matters of daily fact, it m