demus to pull up at
the sidewalk.

"We are all so sorry that you are not coming," said she, impulsively. And
there she stopped short. For Anne was a sincere person, and remembered
Virginia. "That is, I am so sorry," she added, a little hastily.
"Stephen, I saw the portrait of your grandfather, and I wanted you to
come in his costume."

Stephen, smiling down on her, said nothing. And poor Anne, in her fear
that he had perceived the shade in her meaning, made another unfortunate
remark.

"If you were not a--a Republican--" she said.

"A Black Republican," he answered, and laughed at her discomfiture. "What
then?"

Anne was very red.

"I only meant that if you were not a Republican, there would be no
meeting to address that night."

"It does not make any difference to you what my politics are, does it?"
he asked, a little earnestly.

"Oh, Stephen!" she exclaimed, in gentle reproof.

"Some people have discarded me," he said, striving to smile.

She wondered whether he meant Virginia, and whether he cared. Still
further embarrassed, she said something which she regretted immediately.

"Couldn't you contrive to come?"

He considered.

"I will come, after the meeting, if it is not too late," he said at
length. "But you must not tell any one."

He lifted his hat, and hurried on, leaving Anne in a quandary. She wanted
him. But what was she to say to Virginia? Virginia was coming on the
condition that he was not to be there. And Anne was scrupulous.

Stephen, too, was almost instantly sorry that he had promised. The little
costumer's shop (the only one in the city at that time) had been
ransacked for the occasion, and nothing was left to fit him. But when he
reached home there was a strong smell of camphor in his mother's room.
Colonel Brice's cocked hat and sword and spurs lay on the bed, and
presently Hester brought in the blue coat and buff waistcoat from the
kitchen, where she had been pressing them. Stephen must needs yield to
his mother's persuasions and try them on--they were more than a passable
fit. But there were the breeches and cavalry boots to be thought of, and
the ruffled shirt and the powdered wig. So before tea he hurried down to
the costumer's again, not quite sure that he was not making a fool of
himself, and yet at last sufficiently entered into the spirit of the
thing. The coat was mended and freshened. And when after tea he dressed
in the character, his appearance was so striking that his