than a man, he must begin by proving himself
a man at all. Genius? Give me common sense and common decency! Does he
give Mrs. Vavasour, pray, the benefit of any of these pretty flights of
genius?"

Valencia was frightened. She had never heard her Saint Pere speak so
severely and sarcastically; and she feared that if he knew the truth he
would be terribly angry. She had never seen him angry; but she knew well
enough that that passion, when it rose in him in a righteous cause,
would be very awful to see; and she was one of those women who always
grow angry when they are frightened. So she was angry at his calling her
Miss St. Just; she was angry because she chose to think he was talking
at her; though she reasonably might have guessed it, seeing that he had
scolded her a hundred times for want of steadiness of character. She was
more angry than all, because she knew that her own vanity had caused--at
least disagreement--between Lucia and Elsley. All which (combined with
her natural wish not to confess an unpleasant truth about her sister)
justified her, of course, in answering,--

"Miss St. Just does not intrude into the secrets of her sister's married
life; and if she did, she would not repeat them."

Major Campbell sighed, and walked on a few moments in silence, then,--

"Pardon, Miss St. Just; I asked a rude question, and I am sorry for it."

"Pardon you, my dear Saint Pere?" cried she, almost catching at his
hand. "Never! I must either believe you infallible, or hate you
eternally. It is I that was naughty; I always am; but you will forgive
Queen Whims?"

"Who could help it?" said the Major, in a sad, sweet tone. "But here is
the postman. May I open my letters?"

"You may do as you like, now you have forgiven me. Why, what is it, mon
Saint Pere?"

A sudden shock of horror had passed over the Major's face, as he read
his letter: but it had soon subsided into stately calm.

"A gallant officer, whom we and all the world knew well, is dead of
cholera, at his post, where a man should die.... And, my dear Miss St.
Just, we are going to the Crimea."

"We?--you?"

"Yes. The expedition will really sail, I find."

"But not you?"

"I shall offer my services. My leave of absence will, in any case, end
on the first of September; and even if it did not, my health is quite
enough restored to enable me to walk up to a cannon's mouth."

"Ah, mon Saint Pere, what words are these?"

"The words of an old soldier, Queen