thered around the area railing in front.

"But _what_?" demanded the younger combatant.

"But that my sword, sir--" began the elder.

"Oh, you _have_ a sword, then!" sneered Wallace. "I thought it was all
_belts_!"

"I would chastise you for this, sir, severely," said the officer, "but
that my sword is sacred to the cause of the Union. When with my
regiment, sir--"

"Yes, I know," again interrupted Wallace, who had his own reasons for
believing that the Colonel's regiment was altogether a myth, as so many
others have been--"Yes, I know--the Eleven hundred and fifty-fifth Coney
Island Thimble-rig Zouaves!"

Human patience could stand this no longer. With one dash for his hat and
a surly "Good night, ladies!" coupled with an intimation to Wallace:
"You shall hear from me, sir!" Lt. Colonel John Boadley Bancker (let him
once more have the full benefit of the name!) strode out of the parlor
into the hall, and was about to vanish from the field. But as he passed
into the hall the hand of Aunt Martha was laid upon his arm, and her
voice--so much pleasanter than that of the tormentor--sounded in his
ear. The good aunt, whatever might have been her wish to rid her niece
of a match so repugnant, certainly did not wish to produce the riddance
in this manner and to send the Colonel out of the house under a
sensation of outrage which could not fail to come to the ears of her
"big brother." So she passed into the hall with the Colonel, leaving the
young people behind her,--and managed to detain the enraged man in the
hall and on the piazza for several minutes. It was not the first time,
beyond doubt, that she had made peace for others, however she might have
martyred her own.

"Oh, Frank! what have you done!" exclaimed the young girl, the moment
they had passed out into the hall, her eyes yet dim with the tears of
anxiety she had been shedding; but in spite of her fear and even her
mortification, laying her hand in that of the reckless young scapegrace
whom she truly loved. "Father will hear of this--we shall be separated
altogether!" And again she repeated the expostulation of all dairy-maids
to all cats or children that have upset pans of milk--"What have you
done!"

"What have I done!" echoed the culprit. "Why merely roasted a cowardly
humbug who deserves nothing better, and who has not spunk enough to
resent it--that is all!"

"But besides my father's anger--I am afraid he _may_, Frank," said the
young girl, looking