sitting,
and knelt down beside him. Colonel Egbert Crawford noted every feature
of the movement, and saw that his fancy of the change in her appearance
was not fancy alone. There _was_ something threatening. Mechanically he
had taken the note as she had handed it to him and passed by. He glanced
at the superscription, and though his wonder was increased, his fears of
a rupture with Mary were partially dissipated, for the hand was totally
unknown to him. Ha! he had it! The hand-writing on the note was that of
a woman--the note had come to the house for him--she had seen it and
conceived a sudden spasm of jealousy on account of it! How easily he
could dissipate that idea by showing her the note, which he was certain
could not be from any illicit female correspondent who had brought him
within her power. The note was almost certain to be from some lady on
professional business, or from the wife, sister or mother of some
recruit who had enlisted in the famous Two Hundredth, asking for his
influence towards a discharge or a furlough. He would show her the note
at once, after he had read it, and with some kind of laughing excuse for
showing it which would not betray the fact that he knew of her having
any interest in it; and then this sudden but not dangerous hurricane
would be over.

He glanced round at the pair on the end of the piazza, a smile of
triumph on his face, as he came to this conclusion. Mary was kneeling
beside her father, her back towards himself, fondling the old man's poor
withered face, and paying so little attention to the man so soon to be
her husband, that the jealousy hypothesis might have seemed well
supported. What was it that the little girl had said to Josephine
Harris, not half an hour before?--that "she could never meet Egbert
Crawford after such a revelation?" Something of the kind, certainly. And
she had met him, and unconsciously and without calculation gone through
the very-brief interview in a manner worthy of the most finished
actress--say of _La Heron, La Hoey_ or _La Bateman_, to name three of
the most dissimilar but ablest representatives of dramatic character on
the American stage. Oh, these little women, who make a boast of their
weakness--there is very little that they cannot do when brought to the
test!

Colonel Egbert Crawford tore open the note, walking towards the upper or
eastern end of the piazza as he did so. His back was towards the two on
the other end, and perhaps it was wel