g a retail business. By the by--did you
know?--'twas Sam's gun broke the city's record, last week, for rapid
firing! Funny, isn't it!--Excuse me, I must speak to those ladies."

The ladies, never prettier, were Mrs. Callender and Constance. They were
just reentering, from a shop, their open carriage. In amiable reproach
they called him a stranger, yet with bewitching resignation accepted and
helped out his lame explanations.

"You look--" began Constance--but "careworn" was a risky term and she
stopped. He suggested "weather-beaten," and the ladies laughed.

"Yes," they said, "even they were overtasked with patriotic activities,
and Anna had almost made herself ill. Nevertheless if he would call he
should see her too. Oh, no, not to-day; no, not to-morrow; but--well--
the day after." (Miss Valcour passed so close as to hear the
appointment, but her greeting smile failed to draw their attention.)
"And oh, then you must tell us all about that fearful adventure in which
you saved Lieutenant Greenleaf's life! Ah, we've heard, just heard, _in
a letter_." The horses danced with impatience. "We shall expect you!"

As they drove into Royal Street with Constance rapturously pressing
Miranda's hand the latter tried vainly to exchange bows with a third
beauty and a second captain, but these were busy meeting each other in
bright surprise and espied the carriage only when it had passed.

Might the two not walk together a step or so? With pleasure. They were
Flora and Irby. Presently--

"Do you know," she asked, "where your cousin proposes to be day after
to-morrow evening--in case you should want to communicate with him?"

He did not. She told him.

XVII

"OH, CONNIE, DEAR--NOTHING--GO ON"

The third evening came. On all the borders of dear Dixie more tents than
ever whitened sea-shores and mountain valleys, more sentinels paced to
and fro in starlight or rain, more fifers and trumpeters woke the echoes
with strains to enliven fortitude, more great guns frowned silently at
each other over more parapets, and more thousands of lovers reclined
about camp fires with their hearts and fancies at home, where mothers
and maidens prayed in every waking moment for God's mercy to keep the
brave truants; and with remembrance of these things Anna strove to
belittle her own distress while about the library lamp she and Miranda
seemed each to be reading a book, and Constance the newspaper sent from
Charleston by Mandeville.