s, but believing
nothing of the kind. How we did joke over our united efforts at
composing it! He was the scholar, but I suggested all sorts of
long-stilted sentences to him, which he modified to suit himself. He
used to think me bright in those days. When it was signed, addressed,
and sealed, we looked into each other's eyes.

"'I wonder if we'll ever regret this?' said Duncan, serious for the
first time. He was always more grave than I, and used often to curb my
high spirits--who would think it now?

"'Fiddle-faddle! Regret a pot of money, or a Queen's commission as
Field-marshal?' I asked flippantly.

"'Yet the pot of money might not make us really better off, and the
Queen's commission might take me away from you,' he said, and stooped
to kiss me.

"I don't know what came over me, then. A sudden fear seemed to
contract my heart. I caught him about the neck, declaring we could not
be happier than we were.

"'Throw the letter into the fire, Duncan!' I cried. 'It may separate
us, and I'd rather have you than all the world besides!' He held me
close a minute, then laughed a little.

"What geese we are! How could anything separate us, if we don't let
it? You know very well any advantage would cease to be one the minute
it came between us. We will send the letter, but we will use our own
judgment about whatever it brings us.'

"So it was sent, and--what is that? Tegeloo, what is it? are we to
take to the boats, after all? Why are they shouting so?"

She rose, and the girls after her. Tegeloo, seemingly deprived of
speech, was motioning wildly at the door leading to the saloon. They
dashed past him into the roomful of people cheering, shouting, crying,
praying, and kissing, in a perfect frenzy of relief.

Some one, with a face far blacker than the Hindu boy's, caught each
girl by the hand.

"Girlies," cried a well-known voice. "We are safe--the fire is out!"
Then turning quickly, "Friends, let's sing 'Old Hundred,'--hearty now!"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when, as with one impulse,
all broke into the grand old measure. Nobody pitched the tune, nor
started it--it started itself! Mrs. Campbell sang it on her knees,
with streaming eyes and hair, the captain and his daughters sang it
locked in each other's arms, and the Traveler, seeing Lady Moreham left
momently alone, clasped her hand in brotherly fashion, and joined his
fine bass to her uncultivated treble, never thinking of