hat he may be here in twenty-four hours! Come! Shall I do
that?"

Corona, who had been gazing at the mocking speaker scarcely knowing
whether he spoke in earnest or in irony, now answered despairingly:

"Oh, no, no! not for the world! I have not changed my mind. I could not
do so for any cause."

"Then don't stop me. I'm in haste. I am going to North End. Don't let me
find you here when I come back. Don't let me ever see or hear from you
again, without your consent to marry the man I have chosen for you.
John!"

"Oh, sir, consider--" began Corona, pleadingly.

"John!" vociferated the Iron King, pushing rudely past her.

The old servant came hurrying up, helped his master on with his overcoat
and with his rubber coat, then gave him his hat and gloves, and finally
hoisted a large umbrella to hold over his master's head as he passed
from the house to the carriage in front.

Corona stood watching until the carriage rolled away and old John came
back into the hall and closed the door. Then she returned to the library
and sank sobbing into the big leathern chair. She now realized for the
first time what the parting with her grandfather would be--the parting
with the gray old man who had been the ogre of her childhood, the terror
of her youth, and the autocrat of her maturity, and yet whom, by all the
laws of nature, she tenderly loved, and whom by the commandment of God
she was bound to honor.

She glanced mechanically toward the card rack, and saw there another
letter in the handwriting of her brother--a letter that had come in the
morning's mail and had been stuck up there, and in the excitement of the
hour had been neglected or forgotten.

She seized it eagerly and tore it open, wondering what could have urged
Sylvan to write so soon after his last letter.

It was dated three weeks later than the one she had received only the
day previous, the first one having, no doubt, been delayed somewhere
along the uncertain route.

In this letter Sylvan complained that he had not received a word from
his dear sister since leaving Governor's Island, and mentioned that he
himself had written all along the line of march and three times since
the arrival of his regiment at Fort Farthermost.

But he admitted, also, that the mails beyond the regular United States
mail roads were very uncertain and irregular. Then he came to the object
of this particular epistle.

"It is, my dear Cora, to tell you," he wrote, "that if you sh