"Who?"

"Mr. Berkley."

"I--asked him," she replied, flushing faintly.

"He has not come, then?"

"Not yet. I suppose--business----"

The Colonel said, ponderously careless: "I imagine that he is
likely to come in the late afternoon--when he does come."

"I don't know. He is in business."

"It doesn't keep him after three o'clock at his office."

She looked up surprised: "Doesn't it?" And her eyes asked
instinctively: "How did you know?" But the Colonel sat silent
again, his head lowered and partly averted as though to turn his
good ear toward her. Clearly his mind already dwelt on other
matters, she was thinking; but she was mistaken.

"When he comes," said Colonel Arran slowly, "will you have the
kindness to say to him that Colonel Arran will be glad to renew the
acquaintance?"

"Yes. . . . Perhaps he has forgotten the street and number. I
might write to him--to remind him?" Colonel Arran made no answer.

She wrote that night:

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:

"I am in my own house now and am very contented--which does not
mean that I did not adore being with Celia Craig and Estcourt and
the children.

"But home is pleasant, and I am wondering whether you might care to
see the home of which I have so often spoken to you when you used
to come over to Brooklyn to see me [_me_ erased and _us_ neatly
substituted in long, sweeping characters].

"I have been doing very little since I last saw you--it is not
sheer idleness, but somehow one cannot go light-heartedly to
dinners and concerts and theatres in times like these, when
traitors are trampling the nag under foot, and when thousands and
thousands of young men are leaving the city every day to go to the
defence of our distracted country.

"I saw a friend the other day--a Mrs. Wells--and _three_ of her
boys, friends of mine, have gone with the 7th, and she is so
nervous and excited that she can scarcely speak about it. _So_
many men I know have gone or are going. Stephen was here
yesterday, wild to go with the 8d Zouaves, but I promised his
father to use my influence--and he _is_ too young--although it is
very fine and chivalrous of him to wish to go.

"I thought I would write you a little note, to remind you that I am
at home, and already it has become a letter. Please remember--when
you think of it at all--that it would give me pleasure to receive
you.

"Sincerely yours,

"AILSA PAIGE."

Toward the end of the week she received a heart-b