her lips.

He saw it, and leaned toward her in impulsive tenderness. A timid look on
her face caused him to sink back in silence.

They had now drifted near the city. The sun was slowly sinking in a
smother of fiery splendour that mirrored its changing hues in the still
water. The hush of the harvest fullness of autumn life was over all
nature. They passed a camp of soldiers and then a big hospital on the
banks above. A gun flashed from the hill, and the flag dropped from its
staff.

The girl's eyes lingered on the flower in his coat a moment and then on
the red scar in the edge of his dark hair, and somehow the difference
between them seemed to melt into the falling twilight. Only his nearness
was real. Again a strange joy held her.

He threw her a look of tenderness, and she began to tremble. A sea gull
poised a moment above them and broke into a laugh.

Bending nearer, he gently took her hand, and said:

"I love you!"

A sob caught her breath and she buried her face on her arm.

"I am for you, and you are for me. Why beat your wings against the thing
that is and must be? What else matters? With all my sins and faults my
land is yours--a land of sunshine, eternal harvests, and everlasting song,
old-fashioned and provincial perhaps, but kind and hospitable. Around its
humblest cottage song birds live and mate and nest and never leave. The
winged ones of your own cold fields have heard their call, and the sky
to-night will echo with their chatter as they hurry southward. Elsie, my
own, I too have called--come; I love you!"

She lifted her face to him full of tender spiritual charm, her eyes
burning their passionate answer.

He bent and kissed her.

"Say it! Say it!" he whispered.

"I love you!" she sighed.

CHAPTER VI

THE GAUGE OF BATTLE

The day of the first meeting of the National Congress after the war was
one of intense excitement. The galleries of the House were packed. Elsie
was there with Ben in a fever of secret anxiety lest the stirring drama
should cloud her own life. She watched her father limp to his seat with
every eye fixed on him.

The President had pursued with persistence the plan of Lincoln for the
immediate restoration of the Union. Would Congress follow the lead of the
President or challenge him to mortal combat?

Civil governments had been restored in all the Southern States, with men
of the highest ability chosen as governors and lawmakers. Their
legislatures had una