"Is that all?"

"Do you think of anything more?" asked Rosa, addressing Ned.

"You have given all that was said--that is, all that is worth telling,"
answered the young man, into whose brain were burned some utterances
which had not been referred to by his fair companion.

"If there is anything else," persisted Jo, "why, let's have it; for
though it may seem trifling to you, it may be of importance when weighed
by the Mohawk. Out with all you remember!"

"I have nothing more to tell," replied Ned, feeling the situation
becoming embarrassing.

"I forgot something else," added the girl, in a light manner, that sent
the shivers down the back of young Minturn, for his instinct told him
what was coming. "You can't ask me to tell you all the bad words Colonel
Butler used."

"Not unless you would like to go over them, but let me know what it was
that _caused_ him to speak in that style?"

"Oh! but he had good cause for it all, for that wicked Captain Bagley
told him there was a young gentleman somewhere that thought all the
world of me, and of whom I thought all the world, and the idea that I
liked anybody else besides him was what made him so angry. I believe you
have _all_ now."

"Yes, I believe I have," replied Jo, with a low laugh. "Jack and I were
standing almost as close to them as were you and Ned, and we heard their
conversation."

If the pretty sister had possessed a parasol, she would have made her
brother's head feel the weight thereof. All this was pure jest that
seemed to intrude itself by a law of physiology into the hearts
oppressed so long by grief, dread and anxiety. But there was one heart
upon which the airy words fell with a weight of which the speakers never
dreamed. To Ned Clinton there was something cruel in this reference to
his affection for Rosa. He considered it a sacred secret--perhaps dimly
suspected now by Rosa herself--too sacred, indeed, to be spoken of in
jest by others.

He knew that his friends meant no unkindness, but it touched him
scarcely the less for all that. He and Rosa had passed a few deep,
earnest words, bearing upon that dream of the future which he cherished
so fondly, and not the words merely, but the tones, the manner and the
occasion gave them a significance which was of the profoundest import to
him; and now to hear the maiden refer to them as she did pained him. Was
it, then, all a jest to her? Did she regard the picture he had faintly
limned as one of those uns