ne and most of the other
old estates, for debt. And General Huntington purchased it.

As soon as General Keith heard of his arrival in the neighborhood, he
called on him and invited him to stay at his house until Rosedale should
be refurnished and made comfortable again. The two gentlemen soon became
great friends, and though many of the neighbors looked askance at the
Federal officer and grumbled at his possessing the old family-seat of
the Berkeleys, the urbanity and real kindness of the dignified,
soldierly young officer soon made his way easier and won him respect if
not friendship. When a man had been a general at the age of twenty-six,
it meant that he was a man, and when General Keith pronounced that he
was a gentleman, it meant that he was a gentleman. Thus reasoned the
neighbors.

His only child was a pretty little girl of five or six years, with great
brown eyes, yellow curls, and a rosebud face that dimpled adorably when
she laughed. When Gordon saw her he recognized her instantly as the tot
who had given her doll to the little dancer two years before. Her eyes
could not be mistaken. She used to drive about in the tiniest of village
carts, drawn by the most Liliputian of ponies, and Gordon used to call
her "Cindy,"--short for Cinderella,--which amused and pleased her. She
in turn called him her sweetheart; tyrannized over him, and finally
declared that she was going to marry him.

"Why, you are not going to have a rebel for a sweetheart?" said her
father.

"Yes, I am. I am going to make him Union," she declared gravely.

"Well, that is a good way. I fancy that is about the best system of
Reconstruction that has yet been tried."

He told the story to General Keith, who rode over very soon afterwards
to see the child, and thenceforth called her his fairy daughter.

One day she had a tiff with Gordon, and she announced to him that she
was not going to kiss him any more.

"Oh, yes, you are," said he, teasing her.

"I am not." Her eyes flashed. And although he often teased her
afterwards, and used to draw a circle on his cheek which, he said, was
her especial reservation, she kept her word, even in spite of the
temptation which he held out to her to take her to ride if she
would relent.

One Spring General Huntington's cough suddenly increased, and he began
to go downhill so rapidly as to cause much uneasiness to his friends.
General Keith urged him to go up to a little place on the side of the
mounta