in a handsome dwelling on Rincon Hill. She was beautiful,
well bred--in a word, charming.

"You knew Lieutenant Herman Brayle," I said, rather abruptly. "You know,
doubtless, that he fell in battle. Among his effects was found this
letter from you. My errand here is to place it in your hands."

She mechanically took the letter, glanced through it with deepening
color, and then, looking at me with a smile, said:

"It is very good of you, though I am sure it was hardly worth while."
She started suddenly and changed color. "This stain," she said, "is it--
surely it is not--"

"Madam," I said, "pardon me, but that is the blood of the truest and
bravest heart that ever beat."

She hastily flung the letter on the blazing coals. "Uh! I cannot bear
the sight of blood!" she said. "How did he die?"

I had involuntarily risen to rescue that scrap of paper, sacred even to
me, and now stood partly behind her. As she asked the question she
turned her face about and slightly upward. The light of the burning
letter was reflected in her eyes and touched her cheek with a tinge of
crimson like the stain upon its page. I had never seen anything so
beautiful as this detestable creature.

"He was bitten by a snake," I replied.

THE AFFAIR AT COULTER'S NOTCH

"Do you think, Colonel, that your brave Coulter would like to put one of
his guns in here?" the general asked.

He was apparently not altogether serious; it certainly did not seem a
place where any artillerist, however brave, would like to put a gun. The
colonel thought that possibly his division commander meant
good-humoredly to intimate that in a recent conversation between them
Captain Coulter's courage had been too highly extolled.

"General," he replied warmly, "Coulter would like to put a gun anywhere
within reach of those people," with a motion of his hand in the
direction of the enemy.

"It is the only place," said the general. He was serious, then.

The place was a depression, a "notch," in the sharp crest of a hill. It
was a pass, and through it ran a turnpike, which reaching this highest
point in its course by a sinuous ascent through a thin forest made a
similar, though less steep, descent toward the enemy. For a mile to the
left and a mile to the right, the ridge, though occupied by Federal
infantry lying close behind the sharp crest and appearing as if held in
place by atmospheric pressure, was inaccessible to artillery. There was
no place but the bot