ed the contents of the brief message with tolerable firmness.

"COLONEL SAINT-PROSPER: Will you kindly call this morning to see
me?

CONSTANCE CAREW."

That was all; nothing more, save the address and the date! How long he
remained staring at it with mingled feelings he never knew, but
finally with a start, looked at his watch, thoughtfully regarded the
half-filled trunk, donned his coat and left the room. Several
fellow-officers, the first of the sluggards to appear, spoke to him as
he crossed the hall below, but what they said or what he replied he
could not afterward remember. Some one detained him at the steps, a
gentleman with a longing for juleps, but finally he found himself in a
carriage, driving somewhere, presumably to the address given in the
letter. How long the drive seemed, and yet when the carriage finally
stopped and he had paid his fare, he mentally determined it had been
too short! The driver gazed in surprise after the gentleman, who did
not wait for his change, but, forbearing injudicious comment, gathered
up the reins and drove to the nearest _cafe_.

From the carriage the house was some distance, and yet it appeared
very near the gate to the soldier, who dimly realized he was passing
through a garden where were many flowering plants and where the air
was unusually heavy with perfume. Many other details, the construction
of the house, the size of the verandas, passed without attracting his
notice. Soon, however, he was seated in a great room, an apartment of
old-fashioned height and breadth. He felt his heart beating fast. How
long did he sit there? No inconsiderable period, surely. He examined
everything carefully, without carrying a definite impression of
anything to his mind. The large, carved mirror; the quaint decoration
of walls and frieze; the soft colors of the rug that covered the
floor; the hundred and one odd little things in the cabinet near the
chair where he was seated, trifles in ivory, old silver and china; the
pictures, a Van Dyke, Claude, and a few modern masters. After this
interminable, but confused scrutiny of inanimate things, his heart
beat faster still, as a tall figure, robed in white, entered the
room!

He rose; they regarded each other with mutual constraint; her face had
a bit of color, like the tinge of a rose-leaf; her eyes seemed
agitated beneath the sweeping lashes, a sentiment in ill accord with
the stateli