ful!"

"Why, no, dear, I fancy he's happiest that way."

"But not best, no! And there's another thing--his uncle! You know ab-out
that, I su'pose?"

"Yes, but he--come, they'll be sending--"

"No,--no! a moment! Anna! Ah, Anna, you are too wise for me! Anna, do
you think"--the pair stood in the room with the inquirer's eyes on the
floor--"you think his cousin is like that?"

Anna kissed her temples, one in pity, the other in joy: "No, dear, he's
not--Adolphe Irby is not."

On the way downstairs Flora seized her hands: "Oh, Anna, like
always--this is just bit-win us? Ah, yes. And, oh, I wish you'd try not
to bil-ieve that way--ab-out _his_ cousin! Me, I hope no! And yet--"

"Yet what, love?" (Another panic.)

"Nothing, but--ah, he's so ki-ind to my brother! And his cousin
Adolphe," she whispered as they moved on down, "I don't know, but I fear
perchanze he don't like his cousin Adolphe--his cousin Adolphe--on the
outside, same as the General, rough--'t is a wondrous how his cousin
Adolphe is fond of him!"

Poor Anna. She led the way into the family group actually wheedled into
the belief that however she had blundered with her lover, with Flora she
had been clever. And now they heard the only true account of how
Captain Beauregard and General Steve had taken Fort Sumter. At the same
time every hearer kept one ear alert toward the great open windows. Yet
nothing came to explain that Kincaid's detention up-town was his fond
cousin's contriving, and Sumter's story was at its end when all started
at once and then subsided with relief as first the drums and then the
bugles sounded--no alarm, but only, drowsily, "taps," as if to say to
Callender House as well as to the camp, "Go to slee-eep ... Go to
slee-eep ... Go to bed, go to bed, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep, go
to slee-eep ... Go to slee-ee-eep."

[Illustration: "'Tis good-by, Kincaid's Battery"]

XXIX

A CASTAWAY ROSE

Gone to sleep the camp except its sentinels, and all Callender House
save one soul. Not Miranda, not the Mandevilles, nor Madame Valcour, nor
any domestic. Flora knew, though it was not Flora. In her slumbers she
knew.

Two of the morning. Had the leader, the idol of Kincaid's Battery,
failed in his endeavor? Anna, on her bed, half disrobed, but sleepless
yet, still prayed he might not succeed. Just this one time, oh, Lord!
this one time! With Thee are not all things possible? Canst Thou not so
order all things that a day o