word, and I stood once more at the Row of
Mystery. The chairs were vacant, for the blue coats had wrought havoc
there! A little apart sat a blonde beauty of petite figure, who talked
in a deep contralto voice, astonishing for one so slight, with a young
lieutenant who leaned close to her. I selected her for Tudie Devlin of
Kentucky. She whom I fancied to be the "Evans girl from up North," was
just promenading away with a young man in evening dress. A brunette whom
I imagined to be Sadie Galloway of the Ninth was leaning on the back of
a chair and conversing with a man whom I could not see, hidden in the
shade of a tent fold. I looked behind me and saw a row of disgruntled
gentlemen, nervously pacing up and down. At least there were others
disappointed!

I searched the dancing floor and presently wished I had not done so. I
saw her once more--dancing with a tall, slender man in uniform. At least
he offered no disguise to me. In my heart I resented seeing him wear the
blue of our government. And certainly it gave me some pang to which I
was not entitled, which I did not stop to analyze, some feeling of
wretchedness, to see this girl dancing with none less than Gordon Orme,
minister of the Gospel, captain of the English Army, and what other
inconsistent things I knew not!

"Buck up, Jack," I heard a voice at my side. "Did she run away from
you?"

I feigned ignorance to Kitty. "They are all alike," said I,
indifferently. "All dressed alike--"

"And I doubt not all acted alike."

"I saw but one," I admitted, "the one with a red heart on her corsage."

Kitty laughed a merry peal. "There were twelve red hearts," she said.
"All there, and all offered to any who might take them. Silly, silly!
Now, I wonder if indeed you did meet Ellen? Come, I'll introduce you to
a hundred more, the nicest girls you ever saw."

"Then it was Ellen?"

"How should I know? I did not see you. I was too busy flirting with my
husband--for after awhile I found that it was Matt, of course! It seems
some sort of fate that I never see a handsome man who doesn't turn out
to be Matt."

"I must have one more dance," I said.

"Then select some other partner. It is too late to find Ellen now, or to
get a word with her if we did. The last I saw of her she was simply
persecuted by Larry Belknap of the Ninth Dragoons--all the Army knows
that he's awfully gone over Ellen."

"But we'll find her somewhere--"

"No, Jack, you'd better banish Ellen, and