Osborn, was radiant with sunshiny smiles. "You're not to
know anything yet, Luce, at least until you get it from Doctor Mayhew,
for you never could keep it, and for a week at least it's got to be
kept."

"Well, one thing you _can_ tell," said the major, "that is, if you know,
and put a stop to an awful amount of censure that poor girl's getting.
Why did she leave no word for her father?"

"Because she expected to be home in two hours;" and the reader can judge
just how full and satisfactory must that answer have been.

But were matters mending for Mr. Lanier? was the question still
troubling Mrs. Stannard. Neither Kate nor Miriam had she seen since the
night of the fire. Miriam Arnold was confined to her room. Kate Sumter
would not leave her, and yet over these two devoted friends there still
hovered a spell. The mutual trust and faith seemed shaken. The old
confidence or intimacy was gone.

Now, whatever Mrs. Osborn had told that so cheered Mrs. Stannard, it is
certain the latter could not contain herself long, and that, even as
the major was summoned, toward nine of the evening, to join the solemn
conclave at the colonel's (where by this time Button had opened
proceedings by giving "Black Bill" the best dinner a frontier larder and
cellar afforded), she bustled over to the Sumters', was delightedly
welcomed by her friend and neighbor, whose husband, too, had been called
to council, and presently these two sages were in confidential chat.

To them presently entered the captain, electric, bristling. He wanted
the bundle of latest newspapers. They had not half read them, and
Colonel Button was all eagerness to see some articles concerning the
campaign about which Riggs had been twitting him--asking him whom he had
subsidized at this late hour to rescue his reputation, etc. Riggs had
seen three long, well-written letters in the great New York _Morning
Mail_, obviously the work of a correspondent on the spot, an eye-witness
to the scenes he had described, and these letters refuted the calumnies
recently heaped on Button and his comrades--gave him, in fact, high
praise for soldiership, bravery, energy, even though the writer owned
himself by no means one of the colonel's circle, if, indeed, one of his
personal friends and admirers. Only the Sumters, at Cushing, subscribed
for the _Morning Mail_. Riggs had seen the paper at Omaha. It took a
search of some minutes before even the first was found. Then Sumter's
eyes danc