le army whom I honor more than I do
all the monarchs on earth," said Cora earnestly.

With remembrances and delightful chat the evening was wearing away, and
it was time for the party to retire to rest.

Two days after this the Rockharrts, with Cora Haught and Mrs.
Stillwater, left Baltimore for the North, _en route_ for Canada and New
Brunswick.

The party went first directly to Boston, where they stayed for a few
days, to attend the commencement of the collegiate school at which
Master Sylvanus Haught was preparing himself to become a candidate for
admission to the military academy at West Point; but where, as yet, he
had not distinguished himself by application to his studies.

On promising to do better, Sylvan was permitted to accompany his friends
on their summer tour.

The party spent the season in traveling, and it was not until the 15th
of September that they set out on their return South. They reached
Baltimore late in September, yet found the weather in that latitude
still oppressively warm, and roomed at a hotel.

Here it had been tacitly understood from the first that Mrs. Stillwater
was to remain, while the rest of the party should proceed on their
journey West.

But the family despot had become so habituated to the incense hourly
offered up to his egotism by Circe, that he felt her society to be
essential to his contentment. So he issued his commands to his wife to
invite Mrs. Stillwater to accompany the family party to Rockhold for a
long visit.

The old lady very willingly obeyed these orders, for she also desired
the visit from the fascinator, whose presence kept the tyrant in a good
humor and on his good behavior. So she pressed Rose Stillwater to
accompany them to their mountain home.

Rose Stillwater raised her beautiful soft blue eyes, brimming with tears
that ever came at will, gazed sorrowfully, penitently, deprecatingly,
into the lady's face and cooed:

"I feel as if it were a sin to refuse you! You who have been a mother to
me. And, oh! how dearly I should love to stay with you and wait on you
forever and forever! I could not conceive a happier life! But duty
constrains me to deny myself this delight, and to wrench myself away
from all I love."

"Duty? What duty, my dear girl? I do not understand that. You have no
children to take care of, no house to look after, no husband to please,
for Captain Stillwater is at sea. What duty, then, can you have which is
so pressing as to keep y