ed a step within, leaving
the other two on the balcony. There, when the blow came at last, Flora's
melodious grievings were soon over, and her sweet reasonableness, her
tender exculpation not alone of this dear friend but even of the silly
fellows who had done the deed, and her queenly, patriotic
self-obliteration, were more admirable than can be described. Were, as
one may say, good literature. The grateful soldier felt shamed to find,
most unaccountably, that Anna's positively cruel reception of the same
news somehow suited him better. It was nearer his own size, he said to
himself. At any rate the foremost need now, on every account, was to be
gone. But as he rose Flora reminded him of "those few hundred gold?"
Goodness! he had clean forgotten the thing. He apologized for the
liberty taken in leaving it with her, but--"Oh!" she prettily
interrupted, "when I was made so proud!"

Well, now he would relieve her and take it at once to a bank cashier who
had consented to receive it at his house this very night. She assured
him its custody had given her no anxiety, for she had promptly passed it
over to another! He was privately amazed:

"Oh--o-oh--oh, yes, certainly. That was right! To whom had she--?"

She did not say. "Yes," she continued, "she had at once thought it ought
to be with some one who could easily replace it if, by any strange
mishap--flood, fire, robbery--it should get lost. To do which would to
her be impossible if at Mobile her house--" she tossed out her hands and
dropped them pathetically. "But I little thought, Captain Kincaid--" she
began a heart-broken gesture--

"Now, Miss Flora!" the soldier laughingly broke out, "if it's lost it's
lost and no one but me shall lose a cent for it!"

"Ah, that," cried the girl, with tears in her voice, "'tis impossible!
'Twould kill her, that mortification, as well as me, for you to be the
loser!"

"Loser! mortification!" laughed Hilary. "And what should I do with _my_
mortification if I should let you, or her, be the loser? Who is she,
Miss Flora? If I minded the thing, you understand, I shouldn't ask."

Flora shrank as with pain: "Ah, you must not! And you must not guess,
for you will surely guess wrong!" Nevertheless she saw with joy that he
had guessed Anna, yet she suffered chagrin to see also that the guess
made him glad. "And this you must make me the promise; that you never,
never will let anybody know you have discover' that, eh?"

"Oh, I promise."