ated. I must betake myself to other fields. Ladies, when
I get in a gale it takes something sterner than feminine rebuke to stop
me. I'll away and see Mrs. Wilkins. She likes it. If aught I've said to
wound thee," he continued, bowing with hand on his heart in front of
Miss Sanford, "remember, Miss De Vere, in the words of your favorite
Tennyson,--

'The cold upon your old stone gates,
Is not more lyin' to you than I.'"

"Did you ever know such a rattlepate?" exclaimed Mrs. Turner, as the
long legs went striding down the row, and the young officers sat gazing
after him in wonderment.

"Never," replied Mrs. Stannard; "and yet he has as true a heart and as
tender a nature as almost any man I know. There was no fun in him while
Mr. Ray was in trouble; and no more devoted and loyal friend could he
find. I _like_ Mr. Blake, and always have liked him."

But Mrs. Whaling shook her head. "No right-principled young man could
speak so lightly of sacred things. Ah! here comes the orderly with the
mail." And as she spoke the trim young soldier entered the gate carrying
his budget of letters. Mrs. Whaling stretched forth her hand to take the
packet.

"Please, ma'am," said he, "I left yours at the colonel's, and my orders
is not to give the others to anybody but them as they belongs to."

"I will distribute them here, orderly," she replied, with a superior
smile, "as I know all these ladies and gentlemen and you do not." She
was determined to see who received letters and from whom, if a possible
thing, and she carried her point. Most of them were for the officers.
Nothing came as yet from the regiment. Mrs. Truscott received two or
three letters from the East, which were not handed her until the
self-appointed postmistress had scrutinized the superscriptions; so,
too, she inspected the bills and billets that came to the young subs,
and two letters for Miss Sanford,--one from New York, the other,
addressed in a bold, vigorous hand, was from Headquarters, Division of
the Missouri, Chicago. At this, through

"All her autumn tresses falsely brown,"

she shot sidelong daggers, indeed, as she passed it with significant
smile.

"I thought he'd write even though to-morrow would bring him here
himself," she said; and Miss Sanford bit her lip and colored far more in
indignation than in confusion; but, rallying like the little heroine
she was, and bent now on baffling the schemes of the wily interloper,
she quickly leane