he girl, pink and happy, "is going to have
_such_ a good supper! You know who I mean, dear--that Mr.
Ormond----"

"I remember him," said Ailsa steadily. "I thought his name was
Berkley."

"It is Ormond," said Letty in a low voice.

"Then I misunderstood. Is he here again?"

"Yes," ventured Letty, smiling; "he is escort to--your Captain."

Ailsa's expression was wintry. Letty, still smiling out of her
velvet eyes, looked up confidently into Ailsa's face.

"Dear," she said, "I wish you could ever know how nice he is. . . .
But--I don't believe I could explain----"

"Nice? Who? Oh, your trooper!"

"You don't mistake me, do you?" asked the girl, flushing up. "I
only call him so to you. I knew him in New York--and--he is so
much of a man--so entirely good----"

She hesitated, seeing no answering sympathy in Ailsa's face,
sighed, half turned with an unconscious glance at the closed door
of the kitchen.

"What were you saying about--him?" asked Ailsa listlessly.

"Nothing--" said Letty timidly--"only, isn't it odd how matters are
arranged in the army. My poor trooper--a gentleman born--is being
fed in the kitchen; your handsome Captain--none the less gently
born--is at supper in Dr. West's office. . . . They might easily
have been friends in New York. . . . War is so strange, isn't it?"

Ailsa forced a smile; but her eyes remained on the door, behind
which was a man who had held her in his arms. . . . And who might
this girl be who came now to her with tales of Berkley's goodness,
kindness--shy stories of the excellence of the man who had killed
in her the joy of living--had nigh killed more than that? What did
this strange, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl know about his
goodness?--a girl of whom she had never even heard until she saw
her in Dr. Benton's office!

And all the while she stood looking at the closed door, thinking,
thinking.

They were off duty that night, but Letty was going back to a New
Hampshire boy who was not destined to live very long, and whose
father was on the way from Plymouth to see his eldest son--his
eldest son who had never fought a battle, had never seen one, had
never even fired his musket, but who lay dying in the nineteenth
year of his age, colour corporal, loved of his guard and regiment.

"Baily asked for me," she said simply. "I can get some sleep
sitting up, I think." She smiled. "I'm happier and--better for
seeing my trooper. . . . I am--a--better--woman," sh