ve taking at the hotel
except of the baby.

Corona went into the nurse's room, took the mite in her arms, held it to
her bosom, caressed and kissed it tenderly, but dropped no tear on its
sweet, fair face or soft white robe.

The baby received all this love with delight, leaping and dancing in
Corona's arms, then gazing at her with intense eyes, and crowing and
prattling in inarticulate and unintelligible language, of some happy,
incommunicable news, some joyful message it would deliver if it could.

"Come, Cora. We are waiting for you, my dear," sounded the voice of Mr.
Fabian in the hall outside.

Corona kissed the baby for the last time, blessed it for the vague sweet
hope it had infused into her heart, and then laid it in its nurse's arms
and left the room.

"We shall barely catch the train, if we catch it at all. And the captain
is as nearly in a 'stew' as an officer and a gentleman permits himself
to get. We have been looking for you everywhere," said Mr. Fabian.

"I was in the nurse's room, bidding good-by to the baby," replied Cora.

"Oh!"

No more was said. Baby was excuse for any amount of delay, even though
it had caused the missing of their train and the driving of the captain
into a war dance.

They hurried down stairs and entered the carriages that were waiting to
take them to the depot--Fabian, Violet, Clarence and Corona in one;
Captain and Mrs. Neville, and Mrs. Neville's maid, in the other. And so
they drove to the depot, and arrived just in time to take their tickets
and rush to their seats on the train, with no further leave taking than
a kiss all around, and a general, heartfelt "God bless you!"

The train was speeding away, leaving Washington City behind, when our
party first began to realize that they were really "off" and to take in
their surroundings.

Captain and Mrs. Neville sat together about midway in the car. Clarence
and Corona sat immediately behind them. On the opposite side sat Mrs.
Neville's colored maid, Manda, and in the rear corner, on the same side,
the captain's orderly--a new recruit. About half the remaining seats in
the car were occupied by other travelers.

At Harper's Ferry, amid the most beautiful and sublime mountain scenery
of Virginia, the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, which, in
those ante-bellum days, was well served from the hotel at the depot.
After dinner, the train started off again at express speed, stopping but
at few stations, until near