rested there briefly, discreetly, but in all sympathy. Now the look was
different. It wavered. At one instant I seemed to read regret that I had
come off so well--her eyes flickered suggestively to my remaining arm.

"Be fair," I said; "did I not drink your toast?"

I thought she wavered at this, for a blush deeper than all the others
suffused her.

"Besides," I continued warningly, "you are within the enemy's lines now,
and you may find me a help. Come!" and I held out my hand.

Very slowly she put her own within it. I noticed that it was still
plump, the fine skin not yet withered.

"You are very kind, Major Blake. I had been misinformed, or you should
have had no occasion to think me rude."

It was then that I wished definitely to shake Miss Caroline.

"Come, come," I said, "you are not giving me what you gave at first. I'm
not to be put off that way, you know. If I call you Miss Caroline,--and
I've sworn to call you nothing else,--you must be Miss Caroline."

She searched my face eagerly,--then--

"You _shall_ call me Miss Caroline--but remember, sir, it makes you my
servant." She smiled again, without the icy reserve this time, whereat I
was glad--but back of the smile I could see that she felt a bitter
homesickness of the new place.

"Your most obedient servant," I said. "You have another slave, Miss
Caroline, another that refuses manumission--another bit of personal
property, clumsy but willing."

"Thank you, Major, I need your kindness more than I might seem to need
it. Good night!" and even then she gave me a rose, with the same
coquetry, I doubt not, that had once made Colonel Jere Lansdale quick to
think of his pistols when another evoked it. Only now it masked her
weariness, her sense of desperate desolation. I took the rose and kissed
her hand. I left her wilting in the big chair, staring hard into the
fireplace that Clem had rilled with summer green things.

When my fellow-chattel appeared next morning with my coffee, he was
embarrassed. With guile he strove to be talkative about matters of no
consequence. But this availed him not.

"Clem," I said frigidly, "tell me just what you said to Mrs. Lansdale
about me."

He paltered, shifting on his feet, his brow contracted in perplexity, as
if I had propounded some intricate trifle of the higher mathematics.

"Huh! Wha--what's that yo'-all is a-sayin', Mahstah Majah?"

"Stop that, now! I needn't tell you twice what I said. Out with it!"

"We