автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу  Daisy in the Field

Susan Warner

"My half-day's work is done;

And this is all my part -
I give a patient God
My patient heart.

"And clasp his banner still,
Though all the blue be dim.
These stripes, no less than stars,
Lead after Him."

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST SMOKE OF THE BATTLEFIELD.

While Miss Cardigan went with her nephew to the door, I remained standing by the fire, which could have witnessed to so much done around it that night. I felt strong, but I remember my cheeks had an odd sensation as if the blood had left them. I did not know Miss Cardigan had come back, till I saw her standing beside me and looking at me anxiously.

"Will you go and lie down now, my lamb?"

"Oh, no!" I said. "Oh, no - I do not want to lie down. I have not done my studying yet, that I came to do."

"Studying!" said Miss Cardigan.

"Yes. I want something out of some of your books. I have not done it. I will sit down and do it now."

"You're much more fit to lie down and go to sleep," said she, sorrowfully. "Let be the study, Daisy; and take some rest, while ye can."

"I shall have plenty of time," I said. "I do not want any rest, more than I shall get so."

Miss Cardigan sighed - I had heard more sighs from her that night than in all my knowledge of her before; and I sat down on the floor again, to pull out again the volumes I had put up, and begin my school work anew. As I touched them, I felt how much had come into my hands, and fallen out of my hands, since I took them up before, just a few hours ago. It would not do to think of that. I resolutely put it back, and set myself about getting out of the books the facts I wanted for my work. Miss Cardigan left the room; and for a time I turned over leaves vigorously. But the images of modern warfare began to mix themselves inconveniently with the struggles of long ago. Visions of a grey uniform came blending in dissolving views with the visions of monarchs in their robes of state and soldiers in heavy armour; it meant much, that grey uniform; and a sense of loss and want and desolation by degrees crept over me, which had nothing to do with the ruin of kingdoms. The books grew heavy; my hands trembled; yet still I tried to make good work, and bade myself deal with the present and let the past and the future alone. The "present" being represented by my school day and my studies. Could I do it? The past and the future rushed in at last, from opposite sides as it were, and my "present" was overthrown. I dropped my books and myself too, as nearly as possible; my heart gave way in a deep passion of tears.

Now I tried to reason myself out of this. What had I lost? I asked myself. What were these tears for? What had I lost, that I had not been without until only twelve hours before? Indeed rather, what had I not gained? But my reasonings were of no use. Against them all, some vision of Thorold's face, some sparkle of his eyes, some touch of his hand, would come back to me, and break down my power and unlock fresh fountains of tears. This passion of self-indulgence was not like me, and surprised myself. I suppose the reason was, I had been so long alone; I had been working my way and waiting, in exile from home as it were, so many days and years; nobody that loved me better than I loved myself had been near me for so very long; that the sweetness so suddenly given and so suddenly taken away left me a little unsteady. Was it wonderful? The joy and the grief were both new; I was not braced for either; the one seemed to add poignancy to the other; and between the two facts, that Thorold loved me, and that he was gone from me into what might be a duty of danger, - that he was gone into danger and that he loved me, - for a little while my soul was tossed back and forth like a ship on a stormy sea, unable to make any headway at all. And so Miss Cardigan found me. She half lifted half drew me up, I remember; made me lie down again on the sofa, gave me some hot tea to drink; and when she had made me drink it, she sat still looking at me, silent, and I thought a good deal disturbed. It would be difficult to tell why I thought so. Perhaps it was because she said nothing. I lay quiet with my face hid in my hands.

"What do you think to do with yourself to-day, now?" - was at last her practical question.

"What o'clock is it?" I whispered.

"It's just on the stroke of six, Daisy."

"I'll get up and go on with my work," I said; and I raised myself to a sitting posture accordingly.

"Work!" echoed Miss Cardigan. "You look like much of that! Your cheeks" (and she touched them) "they are the colour of my magnolia there that has just opened. A night's work Christian has made of it! I suppose he is travelling off as content as if he had something to praise himself for. The pride of these men! -"

I could not help laughing, and laughing made me cry. Miss Cardigan promptly put me back on the cushions and bade me lie still; and she sat in front of me there like a good shaggy human watch dog. I should not say shaggy, for she was entirely neat and trim; but there was something of sturdy and uncompromising about her which suggested the idea. I lay still, and by and by went off into a sleep. That restored me. I woke up a couple of hours later all right and quite myself again. I was able to rush through the bit of study I had wanted; and went over to Mme. Ricard's just a minute before school opened.

I had expected some uncomfortable questioning about my staying out all night; but things do not happen as one expects. I got no questioning, except from one or two of the girls. Mme. Ricard was ill, that was the news in school; the other teachers had their hands full, and did not give themselves any extra trouble about the doings of so regular and trusted an inmate as myself. The business of the day rolled on and rolled off, as if last night had never been; only that I walked in a dream; and when night came I was free to go to bed early and open my budget of thoughts and look at them. From without, all was safe.

All day my thoughts had been rushing off, away from the schoolroom and from studies and masters, to look at a receding railway train, and follow a grey coat in among the crowd of its fellows, where its wearer mingled in all the business and avocations of his interrupted course of life. Interrupted! yes, what a change had come to his and to mine; and yet all was exactly the same outwardly. But the difference was, that I was thinking of Thorold, and Thorold was thinking of me. How strange it was! and what a great treasure of joy it was. I felt rich; with the most abounding, satisfying, inexhaustible treasure of riches. All day I had known I was rich; now I took out my gold and counted it, and could not count it, and gave full-hearted thanks over it.

If the brightness wanted a foil, it was there; the gold glittered upon a cloudy background. My treasure was not exactly in my hand to enjoy. There might be many days before Thorold and I saw each other's faces again. Dangers lay threatening him, that I could not bear to think of; although I knew they were there. And even were this cloud all cleared away, I saw the edges of another rising up along the horizon. My father and my mother. My mother especially; what would she say to Daisy loving an officer in the Northern army? That cloud was as yet afar off; but I knew it was likely to rise thick and black; it might shut out the sun. Even so I my treasure was my treasure still, through all this. Thorold loved me and belonged to me; nothing could change that. Dangers, and even death, would not touch it. My mother's command could not alter it. She might forbid his marrying me; I must obey her; but the fact that we loved each other was a fact beyond her reach and out of her, power, as out of mine. Thorold belonged to me, in this higher and indestructible sense, and also I belonged to him. And in this joy I rejoiced, and counted my treasure with an inexpressible triumph of joy that it was uncountable.

I wondered too, very much. I had had no idea that I loved Thorold; no dream that he liked me had ever entered my head. I thought we were friends, and that was all. Indeed I had not known there was anything in the world more, until one night ago.

But I winced a little, privately, in the very bottom of my heart, that I had let Thorold have so much liberty; that I had let him know so easily what he was to me. I seemed unlike the Daisy Randolph of my former acquaintance. She was never so free. But it was done; and I had been taken unawares and at disadvantage, with the thought of coming danger and separation checking every reserve I would have shown. I had to be content with myself at all events; Thorold knew my weakness and would never forget it another time.

I thought a great many other thoughts that night; some of them were grave enough. My sleep however, when I went to sleep, was as light as the fall of the dew. I could not be careful. Just seventeen, and just come into life's great inheritance, my spirit was strong, as such spirits are, to throw off every burden.

For several days it happened that I was too busy to see Miss Cardigan. I used to look over to her house, those days, as the place where I had begun to live. Meanwhile I was bending my energies to work, with a serious consciousness of woman's life and responsibility before me. In one way I think I felt ten years older, when next I crossed the avenue and went into the familiar marble-paved hall and opened Miss Cardigan's door. That Thorold was not there, was the first thought with me. Certainly the world had made a revolution; but all things else looked as usual; and Miss Cardigan gave me a welcome just as if the world had not turned round. She was busy with the affairs of some poor people, and plunged me into them as her custom was. But I fancied a somewhat more than usual of sober gravity in her manner. I fancied, and then was sure of it; though for a long time nothing was said which touched Thorold or me. I had forgotten that it was to come; and then it came.

"And what have ye been doing, my bonnie lady, since ye went away at eight o'clock o' the morn?"

I started, and found that I had lost myself in a reverie. I said, I had been studying.

"You and me have need to study some new things," Miss Cardigan said, soberly.

"Yes ma'am," I said. But then - "What, Miss Cardigan?"

"There's our duty" - she said, with a pause at that part of her sentence; - "and then, how to do it. Yes, Daisy, you need not look at me, nor call the bloom up into your cheeks, that Christian says are such an odd colour. Don't you think you have duties, lassie? and more to-day than a fortnight syne?"

"But - Miss Cardigan," I answered, - "yes, I have duties; but
- I thought I knew them."

"It will do no harm to look at them, Daisy. It is good to see all round our duties, and it's hard too. Are you in a hurry to go back to school?"

"No, ma'am - I can have the evening."

Miss Cardigan pushed her work-baskets and table away, and drew her chair up beside mine, before the fire; and made it blaze, and sat and looked into the blaze, till I wondered what was coming.

"I suppose this is all a fixed thing between Christian and you," she began at last.

I hardly knew what she meant. I said, that I could not unfix it.

"And he will not, no fear! So it is fixed, as we may say; fixed as two hearts can make it. But it's very sudden, Daisy; and you are a young thing, my dear."

"I know it is sudden," I said, meekly. "It is sudden to me.
But he will not like me less for my being so young."

Miss Cardigan laughed a short laugh.

"Troth, he's no right, being young himself, we may say. You are safe for his liking, my bonnie Daisy. But - your father and mother, my dear?"

"Yes, Miss Cardigan."

"What will their word be?"

"I do not know, ma'am."

"You will tell them, Daisy?"

This was very disagreeable to me. I had thought over these things, and made up my mind; but to outline on canvass, as it were, and put in full depth of shadow, all the images of opposition real and possible that might rise in my way - which I knew might rise, - I liked not to do it. Still Miss Cardigan had reason; and when she repeated, "You will tell them at once?" I answered,

"No, Miss Cardigan; I think not."

"When, then, will you tell them?" she said shortly.

"I think I will not tell them at all. I will wait, till -"

"Till Christian does it?"

"Yes."

"When will that be?"

"I do not know. It may be - a great while. Why should I tell them before, Miss Cardigan?"

"For many reasons, as they seem to my mind, Daisy; and I thought, as they would seem to yours. 'Honour thy father and thy mother.' Daisy, would it be honouring them, to let them not know?"

There were so many things, of which Miss Cardigan was ignorant! How could I answer her? I sat silent, pondering the difficulty; and she was silent on her side, waiting for me to think over it. It was never her way to be in a hurry; not to leave her work half done neither, as I knew.

"I will honour them the best way I can," I said at length.

"Then you will write them next steamer. Is it not so, Daisy?"

"That would make it very difficult for me to honour them," I said; "to honour them in action, I mean."

"Why so? There is no way so short as a straight way."

"No, ma'am. But -I cannot undo what is done, Miss Cardigan."

"What our cheeks say your heart has done. No, child." And again I heard the unwonted sigh from Miss Cardigan's lips.

"Not my heart only," I went on, plucking up courage. "I have spoken - I have let him speak. I cannot undo it - I cannot undo it."

"Well?" said Miss Cardigan, looking anxious.

"It was done before I thought of mamma and papa. It was all done - it is done; and I cannot undo it now, even for them."

"My dear, you would not marry without your parents' consent?"

"No, Miss Cardigan. They may forbid that."

"What then? What harm would be done by your letting them know at once how the case stands. They would care for your happiness, Daisy."

Not with a Northerner, a farmer's son, and an officer in the
Northern army. I knew how it would be; but I could not tell
Miss Cardigan.

"What is it you cannot undo, little Daisy?" she said softly, I suppose seeing me look troubled. And she stretched out a kind hand and took hold of mine. It was very hard to bear. All this was a sort of dragging things into light and putting things in black and white; more tangible and more hard to deal with for ever after.

"What is it you cannot undo? Since you confess, that if they desired, you would undo the whole."

"Not my faith, nor my affection," - I said, slowly. "Some things they may forbid, and I obey; but these things are passed beyond their power, and beyond mine. I will be true. I cannot help it now, if I would."

"But, Daisy -" said Miss Cardigan, and she was evidently perplexed now herself. - "Since you are ready to obey them in the utmost and give up Thorold if they say so, what is there, my dear, which your father and mother could command now in which you are not ready to obey them?"

"The time has not come, Miss Cardigan," I said. "It may be - you know it may be - long, before they need know anything about it; before, I mean, anything could be done. I am going abroad - Christian will be busy here - and they might tell me not to think of him and not to write to him; and - I can't live so. It is fair to give him and myself the chance. It is fair that they should know him and see him before they hear what he wants of them; or at least before they answer it."

"Give him and yourself the chance - of what, Daisy?"

"I don't know," I said faint-heartedly. "Of what time may do."

"Then you think -my dear, you augur ill of your father's and mother's opinion of your engagement?"

"I can't help it now, Miss Cardigan," I said; and I know I spoke firmly then. "I did not know what I was doing - I did not know what was coming. If I had known, if I could have helped myself, I think I ought not to have loved anybody or let anybody speak to me without my father and mother choosing it; but it was all done before I could in the least help it; and you know I cannot help it now. I owe something besides to them now. I will not disobey them in anything I can help; - but I will be true, - as long as I live."

Miss Cardigan sat a long while silent, holding my hand all the while; sometimes clasping, and sometimes fondling it. Then she turned and kissed me. It was very hard to bear, all of it.

"I suppose you are a great heiress," she said at last; as if the words escaped her, and with a breath of a sigh.

"It is not that!" I exclaimed. "No, I am not. I am not - I shall not be a great heiress, or an heiress at all, I think. Christian is richer than I."

"My dear!" said Miss Cardigan. "Christian never said a word to me about it, but your friend Mrs. Sandford - she told me; she told me you would be one of the richest women in your State."

"She thought so," - I said.

"My dear, your parents are very wealthy; and they have only one other child, Mrs. Sandford told me. I remember, for it took me with a pity at my heart, little Daisy, for you."

"Yes, they are wealthy," I said; "and Ransom, my brother, is the only other one. He will be rich. But I shall not."

"Do you mean he is the favourite?" said Miss Cardigan.

"Oh, no!" I said. "At least, if he is, so am I. It isn't that. But I shall never be an heiress, Miss Cardigan. I shall be very poor, I rather think."

I smiled at her as I said these words - they were upon the first pleasant subject that had been touched for some time between us; and Miss Cardigan looked quite bewildered. I remembered she had good reason; and I thought it was right, though very much against my will, to explain my words.

"You know what makes my father and mother rich?" I said.

"My dear!" said Miss Cardigan - "They have large Southern properties."

"And you know what makes Southern wealth?" I went on.

"Rice - cotton -"

"No, it isn't that," I said.

"What then, my dear? I do not know what you mean. I thought it was mainly cotton."

"It is unpaid labour," I said. "It is hands that ought to work for themselves; and men and women that ought to belong to themselves."

"Slaves," said Miss Cardigan. "But, Daisy, what do you mean?
It's all true; but what can you do?"

"I can have nothing to do with it. And I will have nothing. I would rather be poor, as poor as old Darry and Maria, than take what belongs to them. Miss Cardigan, so would you."

She settled herself back in her chair, like a person who has got a new thought. "My dear child!" she said. And then she said nothing more. I did not wish she should. I wanted no counsel, nor to hear any talk about it. I had only spoken so much, as thinking she had a right to hear it. I went back into my own meditations.

"Daisy, my child," she said suddenly after a while, - "there is only one thing to be said; and the word is not mine. 'If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you."

"Why, Miss Cardigan," said I, smiling, "do you think the, world will hate me for such a thing?"

"It hates all those who pretend to tell it is wrong."

"I do not pretend to tell it anything," I said.

"There is no preaching like that of the life. Daisy, have you well considered this matter?"

"For years."

"Then I'll know how to pray for you," she said. And there our conversation ended. It had laid on my heart a grave burden of well-defined care, which went with me thenceforth. I could never ignore it nor doubt it was there. Not but I knew well enough each several point in our discussion, before it had come up in words between Miss Cardigan and me; but having so come up, and taken form, each was a tangible thing for ever after. It is odd, how much we can bear unspoken, to which words give an unendurable weight and power. However, these troubles, in their present form, were not unendurable. I only felt them constantly from that time.

My visits to Miss Cardigan now were what they had always been; only perhaps she was a little more tenderly affectionate and careful of me. We did not go back to the discussions of that day, nor to any other regarding my affairs; but she and I scanned the papers well, and talked to each other of the items that seemed now to touch Thorold's and my future as well as the future of the country. We talked, - I could not help it; and yet often I would as lief not; the subjects were not quieting.

The first thing, was the going to Washington of Christian and his class. He wrote to me about it. They went in haste and zeal; waiting for nothing; losing not a train; going by night. Some in civilian's dress; some in cadet clothes, with the black stripe torn off the leg; all eager for their work. What work? It was peaceful enough work just at first. Thorold and others were set to drill the new citizen soldiers who had come in, answering to the President's proclamation, and who knew simply nothing of the business they were to be wanted for, if wanted at all. It was likely they would have something to do! Already a second proclamation from the President had called for a second supply of men, to serve for three years, if the war was not sooner ended. Seamen for the navy also, in like manner.

For three years or the war! It went to my heart, that requisition. It looked so terribly in earnest. And so unhopeful. I wondered, those days, how people could live that did not know how to pray; when every one had, or might have, a treasure at stake in this fierce game that was playing. I have often since felt the same wonder.

I do not know how studies and the usual forms of school recitations went on; but they did go on; smoothly, I suppose. I even recollect that mine went on successfully. With my double or treble motive for desiring success, I had also a reason for prizing and remembering the attainment. But my head was on graver matters, all the time. Would the rebels attack, Washington? it was constantly threatened. Would fighting actually become the common news of the land? The answer to this second query began to be sounded audibly. It was before May was over, that Ellsworth's soldiers took possession of Alexandria, and he was killed. That stirred people at the time; it looks a very little thing now. Alexandria! how I remembered driving through it one grey morning, on one of my Southern journeys; the dull little place, that looked as if it had fallen asleep some hundred or two years ago and never waked up. Now it was waked up with rifle shots; but its slave pen was emptied. I was glad of that. And Thorold was safe in Washington, drilling raw soldiers, in the saddle all day, and very happy, he wrote me. I had begun to be uneasy about his writing to me. It was without leave from my father and mother, and the leave I knew could not be obtained; it would follow that the indulgence must be given up. I knew it must. I looked that necessity in the face. A correspondence, such a correspondence, carried on without their knowing of it, must be an impossibility for me. I intended to tell Christian so, and stop the letters, before I should go abroad. My difficulties were becoming daily more and more clear, and looking more and more unmanageable. I wondered sometimes whither I was drifting; for guide or choose my course I could not. I had got into the current by no agency and with no fault of my own. To get out of the current - perhaps that might not be till life and I should go out together. So I was a somewhat sober and diligent student those closing weeks of the term; and yet, very happy, for Christian loved me. It was a new, sweet, strange, elixir of life.

The term was almost out, when I was called to the parlour one day to see Mrs. Sandford. All winter I had not seen her; she had not been in New York. I think she was unaffectedly glad to see me; somehow my presence was pleasant to her.

"Out of school!" she exclaimed, after a few greetings had passed. "Almost out of school. A woman, Daisy. My dear, I never see you but I am struck with the change in you. Don't change any more! you are just right."

I laughed and asked her, what was the change in me? I had not grown taller.

"No -" said Mrs. Sandford - "I don't know that you have; but your figure is improved, and you have the air of being taller, Daisy. I never saw you looking so well. My dear, what work you are going to do now! now that you are out of the 'elements.' And by the by - what are you going to do, when school closes and you are set free?"

I said I could not tell; I had received no directions. I was waiting for letters from somewhere, to tell me what I must do.

"Suppose you go with me to Washington."

"Washington!" - I ejaculated, and therewith the power of speech left me.

"Yes. You are not afraid, Daisy, that you look at me so? Some people are afraid, I know, and think Washington is going to be stormed by the Southern army; but that is all nonsense, Grant says; and I always trust Grant. He knows. He wants me to come. He says Washington is a novel sight just now, and I may never have such another chance; and I think I shall do as he says and go. Washington is full of soldiers, and no ladies in it. You are not afraid?"

"Oh, no. But - Dr. Sandford has not written to me to come."

"Yes, he has; or something very like it. He asked me to come and see you as I passed through the city - I was not likely to need his admonition, Daisy, my dear, for it always does me good to see you; - and he added that I might suggest to you that I was coming, and ask you if your curiosity inclined you to take the trouble of the journey. He said he thought it worth while, - and that we would both find it so."

I was dumb. Dr. Sandford little knew to what he was inviting me; and I - and Thorold - What a strange chance.

"Well, what are you pondering?" Mrs. Sandford cried gaily. "Dresses? You don't care for dresses; besides, we can have them made in two minutes. Don't you want to go, Daisy? I am sure you do; and I am sure Grant will take famous good care of us, and you specially, and show us the camps and everything. And don't you want to see the President?"

"I have seen him."

"When, and where?"

"In the street - when he went through, on his way to
Washington."

"Well, I don't care much for Presidents; but this one they say so many different things about, that it makes me curious. Don't you want to see him again?"

"Yes - I would like it."

"Then you'll come with me - I see it; and I'll have everything in readiness. Thursday, does your school-work end? then we will go Saturday. You will want one day perhaps, besides, they say Friday is unlucky. I never go a journey on Friday."

"I would as lieve go Friday as any day," I said.

"Oh, well - Saturday will be soon enough; and now good-bye, my dear; you to your work and I to mine. You are beautiful, my dear Daisy!" she added, kissing me.

I wondered if it was true. If it was, I was glad, for Thorold's sake. I knew it would be a pleasure to him. And to my father and mother also; but that brought other thoughts, and I went off to my studies.

CHAPTER II. AT THE RENDEZVOUS.

The examination was over and school ended for me, before I had one half hour to spare to go to see Miss Cardigan. The examination had passed as I could have wished it might; all had gone well; and I could afford to put by that whole train of thought, even as I put up my school-books and stowed them away; being things that I should not immediately want again. Some time would pass, it was likely, before I would need to refresh my memory with mathematics or philosophy. My music was another matter, and I kept that out.

I put my books hastily as well as securely away; and then took my hat and rushed over to Miss Cardigan's. It was a very warm June day. I remember now the cool feeling of her marble hall. Miss Cardigan sat in her matted parlour, busy as always, looking quiet and comfortable in a white muslin wrapper, and neat as a pin; also an invariable thing. Something in the peaceful, settled, calm air of the place impressed me, I suppose, with a feeling of contrast; of an uninvaded, undisturbed domain, which changes were not threatening. I had gone over the street hurriedly; I walked into the room with a slow step.

"Daisy! my dear child!" Miss Cardigan exclaimed, - "is it you? and is all over? I see it is. Just sit down, and you shall have some strawberries; you look tired, my love."

I sat still, and waited, and eat my strawberries.

"Miss Cardigan," I said at length, "what is Christian's address in Washington?"

"In Washington? I don't know. Did he never give it to you?"

"No, ma'am; nothing except 'Washington.' "

"I suppose that is enough. Haven't you written to him?"

"I have written once. - I have been thinking, Miss Cardigan, that I must stop the writing."

"Altogether?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"His writing too?"

"Yes. My father and mother do not know - and I cannot ask them, - and -"

"You are right," Miss Cardigan answered sorrowfully. "And yet you will let your engagement stand, Daisy?"

"I cannot break my part of it, ma'am. I - nor they - cannot change what is, and what has been done. The future is in their hands - or in God's hands, rather."

Miss Cardigan sighed.

"And what then, dear, about the address?" she said.

"Because, Miss Cardigan, I am going there. I am going to
Washington."

She stopped her work to look at me.

"I am going Saturday. My guardian has sent for me. It is very strange, Miss Cardigan; but I must go; and I thought I would like to know in what part of the city Christian is."

"Will you write to let him know? You will, of course. Write just as usual, child; the letter will reach him."

"Why should I, Miss Cardigan? what use? He cannot come to see me."

"Why not?"

"I would not dare. My guardian watches me well; and he would not like my seeing Mr. Thorold of all people."

"Why not? Ah, child! there is a rose leaf in each of your cheeks this minute. That tells the story. Then, Daisy, you had better not go to Washington. Christian will not bear that very well; and it will be hard for you too. My dear, it will be hard."

"Yes, ma'am - and hard not to go. I shall go, Miss Cardigan."

"And mayn't I tell him you are there?"

"No, ma'am. If I can, I will let him know somehow."

But a sense of the difficulties, dangers, doubts and uncertainties, thronging my way, therewith pressed heavily upon me; and I sat in silence and weariness, while Miss Cardigan put up her work and ordered tea, and finally went off to her greenhouse. Presently she came back with a rose in her hand and held it under my face. It was a full dewy sweet damask rose, rich and fragrant and lovely as such a rose can be. I took it and looked at it.

"Do ye mind," my old friend said, "how the flowers spoke to you and brought you messages, when Daisy was a child yet and first came to see me?"

"I know - I remember," I said.

"Does that no tell you something?"

"What does it tell me?" I said, scarce able to command my words, under the power of association, or memory, which was laying its message on my heart, though it was a flower that bore the message. Inanimate things do that sometimes - I think, often, - when the ear of the soul is open to hear them; and flowers in especial are the Lord's messengers and speak what He gives them. I knew this one spoke to me.

"Listen, and see," Miss Cardigan said.

I looked, and as I looked, these words came up in my mind -

"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"

"The Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him."

And still as I looked, I remembered, - "In all their afflictions He was afflicted;" - and, "My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." The words came into my head; but apart from the words, the rose seemed to say all these things to me. People who never heard flowers talk would think me fanciful, I suppose.

"And you will go to that city of trouble, and you will not let
Christian know?" Miss Cardigan said after a while.

"Yes ma'am. - No ma'am," I answered.

"Suppose he should be angry about it?"

"Does he get angry?" I asked; and his aunt laughed.

"Does the child think he is perfect?"

"No, certainly," I said; "of course he has faults; but, Miss Cardigan, I did not think anger was one of them, - or getting angry."

"He will never get angry with you, Daisy, it is my firm belief."

"But does he, easily, with other people?"

"There! I don't know," she said. "He used to be gay quick with his temper, for all so gentle as he is. I wouldn't try him too far, Daisy, with not letting him know."

"I cannot tell him -" I said, sighing.

For I knew, better than she did, what thorough good care would be taken of me, and what small mercy such a visitor as Mr. Thorold would meet at the hands of my guardians. So with a doubtful heart I kissed Miss Cardigan, and went back over the way to prepare for my journey. Which was, however, thrown over by a storm till the next week.

The journey made my heart beat, in spite of all my doubts. It was strange, to see the uniforms and military caps which sprinkled every assemblage of people, in or out of the cars. They would have kept my thoughts to one theme, even if wandering had been possible. The war, - the recruiting for the war, - the coming struggle, - the large and determined preparation making to meet it, - I saw the tokens of these things everywhere, and heard them on every hand. The long day's ride to Washington was a long fever dream, as it seems to me now; it seemed a little so to me then.

It was dark when we reached Washington; but the thought that now became present with me, that anywhere Thorold might be, could scarce be kept in check by the reflection that he certainly would not be at the railway station. He was not there; and Dr. Sandford was; and a carriage presently conveyed us to the house where rooms for us were provided. Not a hotel, I was sorry to find. By no chance could I see Thorold elsewhere than in a hotel.

Supper was very full of talk. Mrs. Sandford wanted to know everything; from the state of the capital and the military situation and prospects for the nation, to the openings for enjoyment or excitement which might await ourselves. The doctor answered her fast enough; but I noticed that he often looked at me.

"Are you tired?" he asked me at length; and there was a tone of gentle deference in his question, such as I often heard from Dr. Sandford. I saw that my silence struck him.

"Nonchalant," said Mrs. Sandford, half laughing. "Daisy does not care about all these things. Why should she? To see and to conquer are the same thing with her, whatever becomes of your Southern and Northern camps and armies."

"Indeed I do care," I said.

"For receptions at the White House? - or military reviews? - or parades, or encampments? Confess, Daisy."

"Yes, I care," I said. "I care about some of these things."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Sandford. "I really thought, Daisy, you were superior to them all. Why, child, you have done nothing but meditate, in the gravest manner, ever since we took seats in the cars this morning. I was thinking that nothing but cabinet ministers would interest you."

This would not do. I roused myself and smiled.

"What do you think of your ward?" said Mrs. Sandford pointedly.

"I think more of her guardian," said the doctor somewhat dryly.

"How soon are you going to send Daisy to Europe?"

"According to orders, just as soon as I can satisfy myself with a good opportunity. I wish you would go."

"Meanwhile, it is a very good thing that she should come here. It will keep her from ennui at least. Washington is alive, that is one thing; and Daisy, my dear, we may mount muskets yet. Come, let us go and get a good night's sleep while that is possible."

I was glad to be alone. I took off my dusty travelling dress, refreshed myself with a bath, put on a wrapper, and sat down to think.

I found my heart was beating in a way that showed some mental fever. What was I about? what was I going to do? I asked myself.

I sat with my head in my hands. Then I got up and walked the floor. I found that I was determined to see Mr. Thorold, and to see him as soon as possible. Yet I had no certain means of communicating with him. My determination was a vague determination, but it sprung from the necessity of the case. I must see Mr. Thorold. Both of us in Washington for a little while now, no foresight could tell when again we might be near each other. It might well be never. I would see him. Then came the question, - Daisy, what are you going to say to him, when you see him? I walked and thought.

Our correspondence must cease. I must tell him that. - It was dreadfully hard to think it, but I knew it must cease. I could not receive letters from Christian in Switzerland, and certainly I could not write them, without the knowledge of my father and mother; - and if I could, I would not. We must stop writing; we must be hundreds of miles apart, know that dangers clustered round the path of one if not both, know that clouds and uncertainties hung over all our future, and we must not write. And I must tell Mr. Thorold so. It was very hard; for I did not flatter myself with an easy bright clearing away of our difficulties by and by, even if the storm of the war should roll over and leave Christian to encounter them with me. I did not hope that explanations and a little persuasion would induce my mother and my father to look favourably on a Northern suitor for their daughter's hand. My father? - he possibly might give up his pleasure for the sake of my happiness; with my mother I saw no such possibility. It was useless to hope they would let me write to an officer in the Union army. If any chance at all for my happiness were in the future, it must lie in changes not yet accomplished, or in Mr. Thorold's own personal power of recommending himself; rather in both these. For the present - I could not tell how long - now, soon, as soon as I should leave Washington again, we must be separated. I wished I could see Thorold that very evening! In Washington - maybe not far off - and days so few - and I could not see him! I sat down again and put my head in my hand. Had I done wrong, made any unconscious mistake neglected any duty, that this trouble had come upon me? I tried to think. I could not find that I had to blame myself on any such score. It was not wrong to go to West Point last summer. I held none but friendly relations with Mr. Thorold there, so far as I knew. I was utterly taken by surprise, when at Miss Cardigan's that night I found that we were more than friends. Could I hide the fact then? Perhaps it would have been right to do it, if I had known what I was about; but I did not know. Mr. Thorold was going to the war; I had but a surprised minute; it was simply impossible to hide from him all which that minute revealed. Now? Now I was committed; my truth was pledged; my heart was given. My heart might be broken, but could never be taken back. Truth must be truth; and my life was Mr. Thorold's if it belonged to anybody but my father and mother. I settled that point. It was needless ever to look at it again.

I had something else to tell Mr. Thorold; and here I took up my walk through the room, but slowly now. I was not going to be an heiress. I must tell him that. He must know all about me. I would be a poor girl at last; not the rich, very rich, Miss Randolph that people supposed I would be. No yearly revenues; no Southern mansions and demesnes; no power of name and place. Would Mr. Thorold care? I believed not. I had no doubt but that his care was for myself alone, and that he regarded as little as I the adventitious circumstances of wealth and standing which I intended to cast from me. Nevertheless, I cared. Now, when it was not for myself, I did care. For Mr. Thorold, I would have liked to be rich beyond my riches, and powerful above my power. I would have liked to possess very much; that I might make him the owner of it all. And instead, I was going to give him as poor a wife as ever he could have picked up in the farm-houses of the North. Yes, I cared. I found I cared much. And though there was not, of course, any wavering of my judgment as to what was right, I found that to do the right would cost me something; more than I could have thought possible; and to tell Mr. Thorold of it all, was the same as doing it. I walked down a good many bitter regrets, of pride or affection; I think both were at work; before I dismissed the matter from my mind that night.

I think I had walked a good part of the night while I was cogitating these things and trying to bring my thoughts into order respecting them. While I was at last preparing for sleep, I reflected on yet another thing. I always looked back to that evening at Miss Cardigan's with a mixture of feelings. Glad, and sorrowful, and wondering, and grateful, as I was in the remembrance, with all that was mingled a little displeasure and disapproval of myself for that I had allowed Mr. Thorold so much liberty, and had been quite so free in my disclosures to him of my own mind. I did not know how it had happened. It was not like me. I ought to have kept him more at a distance, kindly of course. One, or two, kisses - my cheek burnt at the thought - were the utmost he should have been allowed; and I ought to have been more reserved, and without denying the truth, to have kept myself more in my own power. I resolved I would do it in the future. I would keep my own place. Mr. Thorold might indeed know what he was to me and what I was to him; I did not mean to hide that; but he must be satisfied with knowing it and not take any liberties with the knowledge.

So I went to sleep; but my sleep was heavy and scarcely refreshing. I woke up, startled with the thought that I was in Washington and might see Christian to-day. And I found the desire quite outran the possibility.

I was therefore ready to agree to all the plans of my companions; which included for that day a ride to the camps and the President's reception. Abroad, amidst the stir of men, especially where soldiers were or soldiers' work was done, I might hope to see Christian. What then, if I saw him? I left that point. One thing at a time.

CHAPTER III. IN REVIEW

There were a party of us that went that morning to see the sights in the neighbourhood of Washington. On horseback we were; Dr. Sandford and Mrs. Sandford, Colonel Forsyth, whom I had seen at West Point, another gentleman, and myself. I suppose my senses were keened by anxiety; I never shall forget the wonderful beauty of the afternoon and of what we came to see. In some intense moods of mind, it seems as if every sunbeam had daguerreotyping power, and memory the preparedness to receive and retain. And I could tell even now, where there was a sunny bank, and where a group of sun-touched trees; the ring of our horses' hoofs is in my ear with a thought; and I could almost paint from memory the first view of the camp we went to see. We had crossed over into Virginia; and this regiment, - it was Ellsworth's they told me, - was encamped upon a hill, where tents and trees and uniforms made a bright, very picturesque, picture. Ellsworth's corps; and he was gone already. I could not help thinking of that; and while the rest of the party were busy and merry over the camp doings, I sat in my saddle looking over some lower grounds below the hill, where several other regiments were going through certain exercises. It looked like war! it went through my heart. And Ellsworth's soldiers had lost their commander already. Very likely there was somebody to miss and mourn him; somebody at home; his mother - a young wife, perhaps -

"Is Daisy tired already?" Dr. Sandford's voice was at my side.

I roused myself and said we had had a pretty brisk ride, and I had not been on horseback in a long time; which was true and I felt it.

"Has it been too much for you?" he said, with a change of tone.

I disclaimed that.

"These war-shows make you thoughtful?"

"They give me something to think about."

"They need not."

"How can they help it?"

"Daisy, I am confident there is not the slightest danger to Washington. Do you think I would have brought you into danger?"

"Oh, I am not thinking of danger to myself!" I exclaimed. "I am not afraid in that way."

"For the country, are you afraid?"

"Dr. Sandford, do you think there is real danger to the country?" I asked.

"The South will do what they can."

"Do you expect the North will be able to stand against them?"

"You do not," - he said smiling.

"I know nothing about it," I said; "or at least, I know very little of what the North can do. Of course, I know some Northern soldiers will fight as well as any; but, do you think, Dr. Sandford, they can stand - the greater part of them - do you think they can meet the bravery and skill of the South and get the better?"

I asked anxiously. Dr. Sandford's brow grew grave.

"Daisy, I don't know, as you say; but I have lived among the Northern people in my life; and when a Yankee 'takes a notion,' he is as tough a customer as ever I wish to have to deal with."

"But they are not accustomed to fighting," I said.

"I am afraid they will be, before it is through."

"Then you think they are as brave as the South? Can they be?"

Dr. Sandford laughed at me a good deal. Nevertheless, I could not find out what he thought; and I knew, I thought, what he did not know so well. I knew the fiery proud spirit of my native portion of the people. While his banter fell on my ears, my eyes went off to the sunlit green fields where the troops were parading; on Southern soil; and I saw in imagination the rush and fury of vengeful onset, which might come over those very fields; I saw the unequal contest; I saw - what happened soon after. I sighed as I turned my eyes to the doctor again.

"You are more of a Southerner than I thought you," he said.
And I fancied some gratification lurked behind the words.

"But you are true?" I exclaimed.

"True!" said the doctor, smiling. "True to what? I hope I am true."

"I mean, you are a true Northerner? you do not sympathise with the South?"

"I do not think they are in the right, Daisy; and I cannot say I wish they should succeed. It is very natural that you should wish it."

"I do not," I said. "I wish the right to succeed."

"I believe you do, or you would not be Daisy. But, with a woman, - excuse me, - the right is where her heart is."

Dr. Sandford touched so much more than he knew in this speech, I felt my cheek grow hot. I thought at the same time that he was speaking with the intent to find out more than he knew. I was silent and kept my face turned from him.

"You do not plead guilty," he went on.

"The charge is not guilt, but weakness," I said coolly.

"Weakness!" said the doctor. "Not at all. It is a woman's strength."

"To be misled by her feelings?"

"No; to be led by them. Her feelings tell her where the right is - generally. You are Daisy; but a woman, and therefore perhaps no exception. Or are you an exception? How is it, Daisy?"

"I do not wish the South to succeed, Dr. Sandford - if that is what you mean."

"It is quite enough," he said, "to constitute you a remarkable exception. I do not know three more at this minute, in this cause. You will not have the sympathies of your father and mother, Daisy?"

"No, Dr. Sandford."

"Your cousin, Mr. Gary, whom we saw last summer; - on which side is he?"

"I have not heard from him since he came to Washington. I do not know where he is. I want to find out."

"We can easily find out," said the doctor. "If Colonel Forsyth does not know, we shall see somebody this evening probably who can tell us about him."

We rode home through the lingering sunlight of that long day; uniforms, camps, fortifications, cannon, on all sides proclaiming the new and strange state of things upon which the country had fallen; busy people passing and repassing in all directions; an air of life and stir everywhere that would have been delightful, if the reason had been only different. It saddened me. I had to make a constant effort to hide the fact from my companions. One of them watched me, I knew. Dr. Sandford thought I was tired; and proposed that we should defer going to the White House until the next occasion; but I could not rest at home and insisted on carrying out the original scheme for the day. I was in a fever now to see Mr. Thorold; keeping up a constant watch for him, which wearied me. To watch with more hope of success, I would go to the President's reception. Mr. Thorold might be there.

Mrs. Sandford, I remember, was very earnest about my dress. I was in no danger from gratified or ungratified vanity now; it was something else that moved me as I robed myself for that reception. And I met my escort in the drawing-room, forgetting that my dress could be a subject of interest to anybody but one, - who might not see it.

"Why, that is - yes! that is the very same thing you wore to the cadets' hop; the last hop you went to, Daisy?" Mrs. Sandford exclaimed, as she surveyed me.

"It will do, won't it?" I said. "I have had nothing new made this spring."

"Do!" said the lady. "What do you think, Grant?"

Dr. Sandford's face was a little flushed.

"Anything will do," he said. "It makes less difference than ladies suppose."

"It has more to do than gentlemen ever imagine!" Mrs. Sandford returned indignantly. "It is very good, Daisy. That pure white somehow suits you; but I believe everything suits you, my dear. Your mother will be a proud woman."

That sentence laid a little weight on my heart, which had just been springing with undefined hope. I had been thinking of somebody else who might perhaps be not displeased with me.

I sought for his figure that night, among the crowds at the President's reception; amidst all the other interests of the hour, that one was never forgotten. And there were many interests certainly clustering about Washington and Washington society then. The assembly was very peculiar, very marked, very striking in many of its characteristics. The women were few, much fewer than make part of ordinary assemblies; the men were unusually well-looking, it seemed to me; and had an air of life and purpose and energy in definite exercise, which was very refreshing to meet. Besides that, which was generally true, there were in Washington at this time many marked men, and men of whom much was expected. The last have been first, it is true, in many an instance; here as elsewhere; nevertheless, the aspect of things and people at the time was novel and interesting in the highest degree. So, was the talk. Insipidities were no longer tolerated; everybody was living, in some real sense, now.

I had my second view of the President, and nearer by. It did not disappoint me, nor change the impression produced by the first view. What a homely face! but I thought withal, what a fine face! Rugged, and soft; gentle, and shrewd; Miss Cardigan's "Yon's a mon!" recurred to me often. A man, every inch of him; self- respecting, self-dependent, having a sturdy mind of his own; but wise also to bide his time; strong to wait and endure; modest, to receive from others all they could give him of aid and counsel. But the honest, keen, kindly eyes won my heart.

The evening was very lively. There were a great many people to see and talk to, whom it was pleasant to hear. Dr. Sandford, I always knew was a favourite; but it seemed to me this evening that our party was thronged. Indeed I had little chance and less time to look for Mr. Thorold; and the little I could use availed me nothing. I was sure he was not there; for he certainly would have seen me. And what then? It would not have been agreeable. I began to think with myself that I was somewhat inconsistent.

It was not till I got home that I thought this, however. I had no time for private reflections till then. When we reached home, Mrs. Sandford was in a talkative mood; the doctor very silent.

"And what do you think of General Scott, Daisy? you have not seen him before."

"I do not know," I said. "I did not hear him, talk."

"You have not heard Mr. Lincoln talk, have you?"

"No, certainly not; not before to night."

"You know how you like him," Dr. Sandford said pointedly.

"Yes."

"My dear, you made him the most beautiful reverence that I ever knew a woman could make; grace and homage in perfection; but there was something else in it, Daisy, something more; something most exquisitely expressed. What was it, Grant?"

"You ought to know," said the doctor, with a grim smile.

"I do, I suppose, only I cannot tell the word for it. Daisy, have you ever seen the President before?"

"When he passed through New York," I said. "I stood in the street to see him."

Dr. Sandford's eyes opened upon me. His sister-in-law exclaimed,

"You could not see him then, child. But you like him, don't you? Well, they tell all sorts of stories about him; but I do not believe half of them."

I thought, I could believe all the good ones.

"But Grant, you never can keep Daisy here," Mrs. Sandford went on. "It would be hazardous in the extreme."

"Not very," said the doctor. "Nobody else is going to stay; it is a floating community."

So we parted for the night. And I slept, the dark hours; but restlessness took possession of me the moment I awoke. Dr. Sandford's last words rung in my heart. "It is a floating community." "Nobody else is going to stay." I must see Mr. Thorold. What if he should be ordered on, away from Washington somewhere, and my opportunity be lost? I knew to be sure that he had been very busy training and drilling some of the new troops; and I hoped there was enough of the same work on hand to keep him busy; but I could not know. With the desire to find him, began to mingle now some foretaste of the pain of parting from him again when I - or he - should leave the city. A drop of bitter which I began to taste distinctly in my cup.

I was to learn now, how difficult it sometimes is in new forms of trial, to be quiet and submissive and trust. I used to be able to trust myself and my wants with God; I found at this time that the human cry of longing, and of fear, was very hard to still. I was ready to trust, if I might only see Mr. Thorold. I was willing to wait, if only we might not be separated at last. But now to trust and to wait, when all was in doubt for me; when, if I missed this sight of my friend, I might never have another; when all the future was a cloudy sea and a rocky shore; I felt that I must have this one moment of peace. Yet I prayed for it submissively; but I am afraid my heart made its own cry unsubmissively.

I was restless. The days that followed the President's levee were one after the other filled up with engagements and amusements, - if I can give that term to what had such deep and thrilling interest for me; but I grew only more secretly restless with every one. My companions seemed to find it all amusement, the rides and parades and receptions that were constantly going on; I only saw everywhere the preparation for a desperate game soon to be played. The Secessionists threatened Washington; and said "only wait till the Fourth." The people in Washington laughed at this; yet now and then I saw one who did not laugh; and such were often some of those who should know best and judge most wisely. Troops were gathered under Beauregard's command not very far from the capital. I knew the dash and fire and uncompromising temper of the people I was born among; I could not despise their threats nor hold light their power. My anxiety grew to see Mr. Thorold; but I could not. I watched and watched; nothing like him crossed my vision. Once, riding home late at night from a gay visit to one of the neighbouring camps, we had drawn bridle in passing the grounds of the Treasury Building, where the Eleventh Massachusetts regiment was encamped; and slowly walking by, were endeavouring to distinguish forms and sounds through the dim night air - forms and sounds so novel in Washington and so suggestive of interests at stake and dangers at hand; when the distinct clatter of a horse's hoofs in full gallop came down the street and passed closed by me. The light of a passing lamp just brushed the flying horseman; not enough to discover him, but enough to lift my heart into my mouth. I could not tell whether it were Mr. Thorold; I cannot tell what I saw; only my nerves were unstrung in a moment, and for the rest of that night I tossed with impatient pain. The idea of being so near Mr. Thorold, was more than I could bear. One other time, in a crowd, I heard a bit of a laugh which thrilled me. My efforts to see the person from whom it came were good for nothing; nobody like my friend was in sight, or near me; yet that laugh haunted me for two days.

"I do not think Washington agrees with Daisy," Mrs. Sandford said one morning at breakfast.

"She never looked better," said the doctor.

"No. Oh, I don't mean that; she looks all herself; yes, she is in great beauty; but she is uncommonly abstracted and uninterested."

"Not being in general a sensitive person," observed Dr.
Sandford.

I explained that I had never been more interested in my life; but that these things made me sober.

"My dear Daisy!" Mrs. Sandford laughed. "You were never anything but sober yet, in all your little life. I should like to see you intoxicated."

I felt on dangerous ground and was silent. The doctor asked why? - to Mrs. Sandford's last speech.

"No matter!" said the lady. "The first man she loves will know why."

"The first," said Dr. Sandford dryly. "I hope she will not love more than one."

"She will be an uncommonly happy woman then," said Mrs. Sandford. "Nonsense, Grant! every woman loves two or three before she has done. Your first liking will come to nothing, - Daisy, my dear, I forewarn you; - and most probably the second too; but no one will be the wiser but yourself. Why don't you blush, child? On my word, I believe you are growing pale! Never mind, child; I am not a prophet."

I believe the blushes came then, and they all laughed at me; but Dr. Sandford asked me very kindly if I was too tired to see the review that day? I was not tired; and if I had been, nothing would have tempted me to be absent from the review. I went everywhere, as far as I could; and Dr. Sandford was always with us, indulging every fancy I expressed or did not express, it seemed to me. He had to work very hard at other times to make up for it; and I thought Washington did not agree with him. He looked pale and jaded this day.

I thought so after the morning's work was done; at the time I had no leisure for such thoughts. The morning's work was a review of many thousand troops, by the President. Dr. Sandford and our friends had secured an excellent place for us, from which we could well see all we wished to see; and I wished to see everything. For various reasons. The platform where Mr. Lincoln stood had its own peculiar attractions and interests. It held himself, first of all, standing in front, in plain view much of the time. It held besides a group of men that one liked to look at just then. General Scott was there, and I know not how many other generals; the members of the Cabinet, and inferior military officers; and each colonel of the regiments that passed in review, after passing, dismounted and joined the group on the platform. I looked at these officers with particular interest, for they and their command were going straight across into Virginia expecting active service soon. So I looked at their men. While each regiment marched by, the band belonging to it halted and played. They were going to the war. In good earnest they were going now. This was no show of pleasure; it was work; and my heart, it seemed to me, alternately beat and stood still. Sometimes the oppression of feeling grew very painful, obliged as I was to hide carefully the greater part of what I felt. A little additional stir was almost more than I could bear. One regiment - the Garibaldis, I think, had bouquets of flowers and greens in their hats. I did not indeed notice this, until the foremost came just in front of the platform and the President. Then the bouquets were taken out from the hats, and were tossed, in military order, rank by rank, as the files passed by, to Mr. Lincoln's feet. It was a little thing; but how it shook me! I was glad of the rush which followed the passing of the regiment; the rush of people eager to secure these bunches of flowers and evergreens for memorials; the diversion of interest for a moment gave me chance to fight down my heart-swelling.

"Daisy! you are - what is the matter? You are not well - you are tired," - my guardian exclaimed anxiously, as he came back to my side with one of the Garibaldi flower bunches.

"I am well - you are mistaken, Dr. Sandford," I made myself say quietly.

"For which side are you so anxious?" he inquired. "You are paler than you ought to be, at this moment, with a smile on your lips. I got this for you - will you scorn it, or value it?"

"You would not waste it upon me, if you thought I would scorn it?" I said.

"I don't know. I am not infatuated about anybody. You may have the bouquet, Daisy. Will you have it?"

I did not want to have it! I was not amusing myself, as many and as Mrs. Sandford were doing; this was not an interesting little bit of greens to me, but a handful of pain. I held it, as one holds such handfuls; till the regiment, which had halted a little while at Willard's, was ordered forward and took the turning from Pennsylvania Avenue into the road leading to Virginia. With that, the whole regiment burst into song; I do not know what; a deep-voiced grave melody from a thousand throats, cheering their advance into the quarter of the enemy and of actual warfare. I forgot Dr. Sandford then, whose watchful eyes I generally remembered; I ceased to see the houses or the people before me; for my eyes grew dim with tears it was impossible to keep back; and I listened to nothing but that mellow, ominous, sweet, bitter, strain, till the sound faded away in the distance. Then I found that my cheeks were wet, and that Mrs. Sandford was wondering.

"This is what it is to have an ear for music!" she said. "There is positively no possession which does not bring some inconvenience on the possessor. My dear Daisy, you are in pain; those were not tears of joy; what did that chant say to your sensibilities? To mine it only sounded strength, and victory. If the arms of those - what are they? - that regiment, - if their arms are only constituted proportionately to their throats, they must do good fighting. I should think nothing would stand before them. Daisy, they will certainly bear down all opposition. Are you afraid? Here is the Fourth, and Washington safe yet, for all the Southern bluster."

"I do not think you had better try to go to the Capitol," the doctor put in.

"What, to see the meeting of Congress? Oh, yes, we will. I am not going to miss it."

"Daisy will not?" he asked.

But Daisy would. I would try every chance. I did not at the moment care for Congress; my wish was to find Mr. Thorold. At the review I knew I had little reason to hope for what I wanted; at the Capitol - after all, what chance there? when Mr. Thorold was drilling troops from morning till night; unless he had been already sent out of Washington. But I would go. If I had dared, I would have expressed a desire to see some troops drilled. I did not dare.

I remember nothing of the scene at the Capitol, except the sea of heads, the crowd, and the heat; my intense scrutiny of the crowd, and the weariness that grew on me. Mrs. Sandford had friends to talk to; I only wished I need not speak to anybody. It was a weary day; for I could not see Mr. Thorold, and I could not hear the President's Message. I was so placed or so surrounded that it came to me only in bits. Wearily we went home.

At least, Dr. Sandford and I. Mrs. Sandford tried in vain to rally us.

"There is to be a marriage in camp," she said. "What do you think of that, Daisy? We can have invitations, we like. Shall we like? Wouldn't it be a curious scene? Daisy is interested, I see. Grant, no. What is the matter, Grant?"

"I hope, nothing," said the doctor.

"Will you go, if I get you an invitation?"

"Who is to be married?"

"La fille du régiment."

"It takes two," said the doctor.

"Oh! The other is a sergeant, I believe; some sergeant of the same regiment. They are to be married to-morrow evening; and it is to be by moonlight and torchlight, and everything odd; up on that beautiful hill where we were the other day, where the trees and the tents make such a pretty mingling with red caps and everything else."

"I hope the ceremony will be performed by comet light, too," said Dr. Sandford. "It ought, to be in character."

"You do not feel well to-night, Grant?"

"Tired. So is Daisy. Are you tired of Washington, Daisy?"

"Oh - no!" I said eagerly. "Not at all. I like very much to be here."

"Then we will go and see the sergeant's wedding," said he.

But we did not; for the next day it was found to be only too true that Dr. Sandford was unwell. Perhaps he had been working too hard; at any rate, he was obliged to confess to being ill; and a day or two more settled the question of the amount of his indisposition. He had a low fever, and was obliged to give up to it.

CHAPTER IV. ON FOOT

Mrs Sandford devoted herself to the doctor. Of course, a sudden stop was put to our gay amusements. I could not ride or drive out any more; nor would I go to entertainments anywhere. The stir and the rush of the world had quietly dropped me out of it.

Yet I was more than ever eager to be in it and know what was doing; and above all, what one was doing. I studied the newspapers, more assiduously than I had hitherto had time for. They excited me almost unbearably with the desire to know more than they told, and with unnumbered fears and anxieties. I took to walking, to wear away part of the restless uneasiness which had settled upon me. I walked in the morning; I walked at evening, when the sun's light was off the avenue and the air a little cooler; and kept myself out of the house as much as I could.

It was so that I came upon my object, when I was not seeking it. One evening I was walking up Pennsylvania avenue; slowly, for the evening was warm, although the sun had gone down. Slowly and disconsolately. My heart began to fail me. I pondered writing a word to Mr. Thorold, now that I was completely at liberty; and I wished I had done it at once upon Dr. Sandford's becoming ill. Two or three days' time had been lost. I should have to take the note to the post-office myself; but that would not be impossible now, as it had been until now. While I was thinking these things, I saw a horseman riding down the avenue; a single horseman, coming at a fast gallop. I had never seen Mr. Thorold on horseback; yet from almost the first sight of this mounted figure my heart said with a bound who it was. I stood still by the curbstone, looking breathlessly. I felt more and more sure as he drew nearer, if that can be when I had been sure all along; but, would he know me? Would he even see me, in the first place? So many ladies walk on Pennsylvania avenue; why should his eye pick me out? and he was riding so fast too, there would be but one instant to see or miss me. I would not like to go again through the suspense of that minute, though it was almost too intense to be conscious pain. I stood, all eyes, while that figure came on, steady, swift, and moveless, but for the quick action of the horse's muscles. I dared not make a sign, although I felt morally sure who it was, until he was quite close to me; then, I do not know whether I made it or not. I think not; but the horse wheeled, just as he was past me; I did not know a horse could wheel so short; and the rider had dismounted at the same instant it seemed, for he was there, at my side, and my hand in his. I certainly forgot at that minute all I had stored up to say to Mr. Thorold, in the one great throb of joy. He did not promise to be easily managed, either.

"Daisy!" was his first question - "Daisy, where have you been?"

"I have been here - a while."

"I heard it from Aunt Catherine yesterday - I should have found you before another day went over - Daisy, how long?"

I hardly liked to tell him, he looked so eager and so imperative, and so much as if he had a right to know, and to have known. But he did not wait for the answer; and instead, drawing my arm within his own, bent down to me with looks and words so glad, so tender, so bright, that I trembled with a new feeling, and all the blood in my heart came surging up to my face and away again. The bridle was over his other arm, and the horse with drooped head walked on the other side of him, while Mr. Thorold led me on in this fashion. I do not know how far. I do not know what he said or what I answered, except in bits. I know that he made me answer him. I was not capable of the least self-assertion. What startled me at last out of this abstraction, was the sudden fear that we might be observed. I looked up and said something about it. Only to my confusion; for Thorold laughed at me, softly, but how he laughed - at me. I tried a diversion.

"Have you been drilling troops to-day?"

"All day; or I should have come to find and scold you. By the way, how long have you been in Washington, Daisy?"

"I should not have thought you would ride such a pace at the end of a day's work - you did not ride like a tired man."

"I am not a tired man. Didn't I tell you, I had a letter from Aunt Catherine yesterday. I have felt no fatigue since. When did you come here, Daisy?"

"Christian, I could not let you know, for I was with my guardian - he is a sort of guardian for the time - and -"

"Well? I know your guardian. Dr. Sandford, isn't he"

"Yes, but he would not like to see you."

"I don't care whether he likes it or not, Daisy."

"Yes, but, you see, Christian, it would be not pleasant if he were to carry me off away from Washington; as he took me from West Point last year."

"To get you away from me?"

"He would, if he suspected anything."

"Daisy, I do not like suspicions. The best way is to let him know the truth."

"Oh, no, Christian!"

"Why not, little one?"

"I would rather my father and mother heard it first from you in person," I answered, stumbling in my speech.

"So would I, Daisy; but the times are against us. A letter must be my messenger; and Dr. Sandford has nothing to do with the matter."

"He would think he had," I answered, feeling the difficulties in my way.

"Aren't you my Daisy?" he said, looking down into my face with his flashing eyes, all alight with fire and pleasure.

"But that -" I began.

"No evasions, Daisy. Answer. Aren't you mine?"

I said "yes" meekly. But what other words I had purposed to add were simply taken off my lips. I looked round, in scared fashion, to see who was near; but Thorold laughed softly again.

"It is too dark for people to make minute investigations,
Daisy."

"Dark!" said I. "Oh, Christian, I must go home. I shall be missed, and Mrs. Sandford will be frightened."

"Will the doctor come after you?"

"Oh, no, he is sick; but Christian, I must go home."

He turned and went with me, changing his tone, and making a variety of tender inquiries about my situation and my doings. They were something new; they were so tender of me, so thoughtful of my welfare, so protecting in their inquisitive care; and moreover they were the inquiries of one who had a right to know all about me. Something entirely new to my experience; my mother's care was never so sympathetic; my father's never so fond; even my guardian's was never so strict. Dr. Sandford to be sure had no right to make his care like this. I did not know that Mr. Thorold had; but I found it was indisputable. And in proportion it was delightful. We had a slow, very busy walk and talk until within a few doors of my Washington home; there we parted, with a long hand clasp, and the promise on my part that Mr. Thorold should find me at the same hour and place as to-day on the next evening.

Nobody was looking for me, and I gained my room in safety. I was very happy, yet not all happy; for the first use I made of my solitude, after getting rid of my bonnet and mantilla, was to sit down and cry. I asked myself the reason, for I did not like to be in the dark about my own feelings; this time they were in a good deal of confusion.

As I look back, I think the uppermost thing was my happiness; this new, delicate, strange joy which had come into my life and which I had never tasted so fully or known the flavour of it so intimately as this evening. Looks and tones, and little nameless things of manner telling almost more yet, came back to me in a small crowd and overwhelmed me with their testimony. Affection, and tenderness, and pleasure; and something apart from these, an inexplicable assuming of me and delight in me as so assumed; they found me or made me very weak to-night. What was the matter? I believe it was, first, this happiness; and next, the doubt that rested over it and the certainty that I must leave it. Certainly my weeping was hearty enough to answer to all three causes. It was a very unaccustomed indulgence to me; or not an indulgence at all, for I was not fond of tears; but it did act as a relief. I washed away some of my trouble in my tears; the happiness sprung to the surface; and then I could almost weep for joy and thankfulness that I was so happy. Even if the grounds of my happiness were precarious, I had trusted God all my life with all I cared for; could I not trust Him still? My tears stopped; and I believe one or two smiles could not be checked as I remembered some look or word of Mr. Thorold's.

I was to see him the next evening; and it would behove me to lose no time in telling him all the various matters I had wished him to understand. It seemed to me there was something to reconsider in my proposed communications. I had to tell him that our correspondence must be stopped. Would he agree to that? I had thought he would agree, and must, to anything I desired. To-night assured me that he had a will in the matter too, and that his will was strong. Further, it assured me that he had a right; and knew it. Yet it was impossible that we should write to each other without my parents' leave; and impossible that we should gain the leave. Mr. Thorold would have to see the matter as I looked at it; but a doubt came over me that to make him do so might prove difficult. That was one thing. Then about my not being an heiress. I suddenly found a great dislike in myself to speak to him on the subject. There was no doubt that it would be right to tell him what I had thought to tell him; wrong not to do it; the right and the wrong were settled; my willingness was not. A little inner consciousness that Mr. Thorold would relish any handling of the matter that savoured of the practical, and would improve it for his own ends, made my cheek hot. Yet I must tell him. The thing stood, with only an addition of disagreeableness. And what chance should I have, in the street?

I meditated a good while, before there suddenly started into my mind a third subject upon which I had meant to take action with Mr. Thorold. I had thought to qualify a little the liberty he had assumed upon our first betrothal; to keep at a somewhat more reserved distance, and make him. Could I? Was Mr. Thorold under my management? He seemed to take me under his. I pondered, but between laughing and rebellion I could make nothing of the subject. Only, I resolved, if circumstances gave me any chance, to act on my proposed system.

The next day was swallowed up in like thoughts. I tried to arrange my subjects and fix upon one to begin with; but it was a vain effort. I knew that as soon as I began to get ready for my walk. Things must come as they would. And my cross tides of purpose resolved themselves into one long swell of joy, when I discerned the figure I was looking for, waiting for me on Pennsylvania avenue; too soon, for it was near the place where we parted the night before.

"This is very dangerous -" I said, as we began to stroll up the avenue.

"What?" said Mr. Thorold, looking down at me with his eyes as full of mischief as ever.

"It is so light yet, and you come so near the house."

"You walk with other people, don't you?"

"I am not afraid of the other people."

"Are you afraid of me?" said he smiling; and then growing grave, "We may have only a few times, Daisy; let us make the most of them."

How could I start anything after that. I was mute; and Mr.
Thorold began upon a new theme.

"Daisy, how long have you been in Washington?"

"Christian, I could not let you know. I was always hoping to see you somewhere."

"Sounds as if you felt guilty," he said. "Confess, Daisy; you look as if you were afraid I would be angry. I will not be very hard with you."

I was afraid; and he was angry, when I told him. His face flushed and his eye changed, and turned away from me.

"Christian," I said, "I was very unwilling that Dr. Sandford should know anything about it; that was my reason. If I had written to you, you know you would have come straight to where I was; and the risk was too great."

"What risk?" he said. "I might have been ordered away from
Washington; and then we might never have met."

"Are you vexed?" I said gently.

"You have wronged me, Daisy."

It gave me, I do not know whether more pain or pleasure, the serious grave displeasure his manner testified. Neither pain nor pleasure was very easy to express; but pain pressed the hardest.

"I have been looking for the chance of seeing you; looking the whole time," I said. "Everywhere, it was the one thing I was intent upon."

"Daisy, it might have been lost altogether. And how many days have been lost!"

I was silent now; and we walked some steps together without anything more. But the next words were with a return to his usual clear voice.

"Daisy, you must not be afraid of anything."

"How can I help it?" I asked.

"Help it? - but have I brought those tears into your eyes?"

It was almost worth while to have offended him, to hear the tone of those words. I could not speak.

"I see you are not very angry with me," he said; "but I am with myself. Daisy, my Daisy, you must not be so fearful of unknown dangers."

"I think I have been fearful of them all my life," I answered.
"Perhaps it is my fault."

And with unspeakable joy I recognised the truth, that at last my life was anchored to one from whom I need neither fear nor disguise anything.

"To fear them is often to bring them." he added.

"I do not think it will, in my case," I said. "But, if Dr. Sandford had known you were coming to see me, he might have carried me off from Washington, just as he did from West Point last year."

"From West Point?" said Mr. Thorold, his eyes making a brilliant commentary on my words; - "Did he carry you away from West Point for any such reason? Is he afraid of me?"

"He would be afraid of anybody," I said in some confusion, for
Mr. Thorold's eyes were dancing with mischief and pleasure; -
"I do not know - of course I do not know what he was afraid
of; but I know how it would be."

Mr. Thorold's answer was to take my hand and softly draw it through his own arm. I did not like it; I was fearful of being seen to walk so; yet the assuming of me was done in a manner that I could not resist nor contravene. I knew how Christian's eyes fell upon me; I dared not meet them.

"Is the doctor jealous of you, Daisy?" he whispered laughing.
I did not find an answer immediately.

"Does he dare?" Mr. Thorold said in a different tone.

"No, no. Christian, how imperious you are!"

"Yes," he said; "I will be so where you are concerned. What do you mean, Daisy? or what does he mean?"

"He is my guardian, you know," I said; "and he has sharp eyes; and he is careful of me."

"Very careful?" said Mr. Thorold, laughing and pressing my arm. "Daisy, I am your guardian while you are in Washington. I wish I had a right to say that you shall have nothing more to do with Dr. Sandford. But for the present I must mind my duty."

"And I mine," - I added, with my heart beating. Now it seemed a good opening for some of the things I had to say; yet my heart beat and I was silent.

"Yours, Daisy?" he said very tenderly. "What is yours? What present pressure of conscience is giving you something hard to do? I know it will be done! What work is this little soldier on?"

I could not tell him. I could not. My answer diverged.

"What are you on, Christian?"

"The same thing. Rather preparing for work - preparing others.
I am at that all day."

"And do you expect there will be real work, as you call it?
Will it come to that?"

"Looks like it. What do you think of Fairfax Court-house? - and Great Bethel? - and Falling Waters, and so on?"

"That was bad, at Great Bethel," I said.

"Mismanagement -" said Mr. Thorold calmly.

"And at Vienna."

"No, the troops behaved well. They behaved well, Daisy. I am content with that."

"Do you think - don't be angry, Christian! - do you think the people of the North generally will make as fiery fighting men as the people of the South, who are used to fighting, and commanding, and the practice of arms?"

"When you get a quiet man angry, Daisy, he is the very worst man to deal with that you ever saw."

"But the people of the North are all accustomed to peaceful employments?"

Mr. Thorold laughed, looking down at me with infinite amusement and tenderness mixed.

"I see what your training has been," he said. "What will you do when you have one of those quiet people for your husband?"

"Quiet!" said I. "When your eyes are showering sparks of fire all over me!"

"Daisy," he said, "those rose leaves in your cheeks are the very prettiest bits of colour I ever saw in my life."

"But we are wandering from the subject," I said.

"No, we are not," he said decidedly. "You are my one subject at all times."

"Not when you are training soldiers?" I said half laughing. But he gave me a look which silenced me. And it nearly took away all the courage I had, for everything I wanted to say to him and had found it so difficult to say.

"Christian," I began again after an interval, "were the troops that were sent over into Virginia just now, sent, do you suppose, to meet Beauregard?"

"I suppose so."

"You are not going?" - I asked, because the question was torturing me.

He looked down at me again, a steady, fixed, inquiring look, that grew very full of affection before he answered,

"I hope so, Daisy."

"You are not ordered!"

"No; not yet."

"But if you were to go, would you not know it by this time?"

"Not certainly. Some troops will be left here of course, to guard Washington."

I walked with my heart in my mouth. I knew, what he did not say, that orders might be issued suddenly and as suddenly obeyed; with no beforehand warning or after delay. How could I speak anything of what had been in my mind to be said? Yet the very circumstances which made it more difficult made it also imperative, to speak them. I fought myself, while Mr. Thorold sometimes watched me and constantly took care of me, with a thoughtful care in little things which was eloquent.

"Christian" - I began, feeling my voice changed.

"That is to tell me we must turn homeward?" he said gayly.

"No; I want to speak to you. But we must turn homeward too."

"To speak to me? In that voice? Look at me, Daisy. - No, I won't hear it now, and not here. We must have something better. Daisy, go and ride with me to- morrow evening!"

"Oh, I cannot."

"Yes, Daisy. I ask it of you. Dr. Sandford is in bed. He cannot go along. Then you can tell me all that is on your mind about Northern soldiers."

"Oh, I only thought Christian - You know, I know the temper of the Southern people."

"You will know the temper of the other section of the country some day," he said, with a smile at me which was half serious and half personal in its bearing. But he made me promise to go and ride with him if I could; and so left me.

I met Mrs. Sandford as I went into the house. She said she was glad I kept up my walks; she was sorry I had such a terribly dull time; it was a pity I came to Washington. Dr. Sandford was no better, and much worried about me, that I should be so cut off from amusement.

"Tell him I am doing very well, and having time to read the papers," I said.

"Those horrid papers!" said Mrs. Sandford. "They make my hair stand on end. I wouldn't read them; Daisy."

"But you do."

"Well, I cannot keep my hands off them when I see them; but I wish I was where I could never see them. Ever since I read General Beauregard's proclamation, I have been in a fury with everything South; and it is uncomfortable to be in a fury. O dear! I wish Grant would get well and take us away. Come in and let us have a cup of tea, dear. Isn't it hot?"

I took the tea and bore the talk, till both were done and I could shut myself into the seclusion of my own room. And tears did not come to-night, but dry heart- aching pain instead; with which I struggled till the night had worn far on. Struggled, trying to reason it away and to calm it down by faith and prayer. Ah me! how little reason could do, or faith either. For reason only affirmed and enlarged my fears; and faith had no power to say; they might not come true. The promise, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings," belongs to those who have their will so merged in God's will as not to be careful what that will may be. I had not got so far. A new lesson was set me in my experience book; even to lay my will down; and nobody who has not learned or tried to learn that lesson knows how mortal hard it is. It seemed to me my heart was breaking the whole livelong night.

CHAPTER V. ON HORSEBACK

A little sleep and the fresh morning light set me up again. I was to ride with Mr. Thorold in the evening; my mind fixed on that nearest point, and refused for the moment to go further. I heard from Mrs. Sandford at breakfast that Dr. Sandford was no better; his low nervous prostration continued and threatened to continue. Mrs. Sandford was much troubled about me. All this suited my convenience; even her unnecessary concern; for I had made up my mind to tell Mrs. Sandford I was going to ride; but I would not till our late dinner, that there might be no chance of her consulting the doctor. At dinner I mentioned that a friend had asked me to ride and I had half consented. Mrs. Sandford looked somewhat startled and asked who the friend might be?

"Another officer," I said quietly; "his name is Thorold. I saw him last summer, Mrs. Sandford; and I know about him. He is a good one to go with."

"I can't ask Grant anything," she said, looking doubtful. "He knows everybody."

"It is not needful," I answered. "I am going to take the indulgence this once. I think it will do me good."

"Daisy, my dear!" said Mrs. Sandford - "You are as good as possible - but you have a will of your own. All you Southerners have, I think."

I replied that I was a Northerner; and the talk went to other things. Mrs. Sandford left me with a kiss and the injunction to take care of myself. I was very glad to get off so, for she looked a little unsatisfied. My way was clear now. I dressed with a bounding heart, mounted, and was away with Mr. Thorold; feeling beneath all my gladness that now was my time and my only time for doing all the difficult work I had set myself. But gladness was uppermost, as I found myself in the saddle and away, with Mr. Thorold by my side; - for once free and alone together; - gladness that kept us both still I think; for we exchanged few words till we were clear of the city and out upon the open country. There we slackened bridle, and I began to feel that the minutes were exceedingly precious. I dreaded lest some words of Christian's should make it impossible for me to do what I had to do.

"Christian," I began, "I have things to talk to you about."

"Well," said he brightly, "you shall. Will it take a great while, Daisy? Because I have things to talk to you about."

"Not a great while, I hope," I said, almost stammering.

"You shall talk what you will, darling. But wait till we get a better place."

I would have liked the place where we were, and the time. Better where the road was rough than where it was smooth; easier where there was something to make interruption than where Christian could give too exclusive heed to me. But I could not gainsay him; and we rode on, till we came to a piece of pretty broken ground with green turf and trees. Here Mr. Thorold stopped and proposed that we should dismount; he said we should talk more at our ease so. I thought my predetermined measures of dignity could be more easily maintained on horseback; but I could not bear to refuse him, and he did not mean to be refused, I saw. He had dismounted even while he spoke, and throwing his horse's bridle over the branch of a tree, came to lift me down; first throwing his cap on the grass. Then keeping me in his arms and bending a brilliant inquisitive look on my face, he asked me,

"Daisy - is this my Daisy, as I left her?"

I could not help answering a plain yes. Nothing in me was changed; and come what might, that was true. No other answer would have been true. And I could not blame him that he held me fast and kissed me, almost as he had done that first time. Almost; but the kisses were more grave and deliberate now; every one seemed a seal and a taking possession. Indeed the whole manner of Mr. Thorold had taken gravity and manliness and purpose; he was changed, as it would have taken much longer in other circumstances to change a man. I stood still and trembled, I believe; but I could no more check him than I could that first night.

Still holding me fast, he lifted my face a little and smiling asked me, what Daisy had to say to him? The tone, tender and happy, was as much as I could bear; more than I could answer. He led me a little way, arranged a seat for me on a green bank, and threw himself down by my side. But that was very inconvenient, for he could look up right into my face.

"Business, Daisy?" he said gayly and tenderly at once. The tone seemed to .touch the colour in my cheeks and the droop of my eyes.

"Yes," I said. "It is business."

"Well, what, love?"

"Christian," said I, putting my hand in his, "you know papa and mamma do not know of this."

"They shall know, as soon as I can write to them," he answered. "I understand - you do not wish that, Daisy; but see - I cannot leave it unsaid, as long as your thought would leave it. Till they know, I have only half a right to you. I cannot live so."

"You must," I whispered, - "till this war is over."

"What then?" said he quickly. "How will that help the matter?"

"Then they may see you for themselves. A letter would not do."

"If you please, how do you expect I am to live till then?" he said smiling. "With half a right to you."

"Yes - with that, - and without writing to me," I answered.

"Daisy!" exclaimed Thorold, raising himself half up.

"Yes," I said - "I know - I have been wanting to talk to you about it. You know, Christian, I could not write nor receive your letters without my father's and mother's permission."

"Can you bear that, Daisy?" he asked.

My heart seemed to turn sick. His words suggested nothing new, but they were his words. I failed to answer, and my face went down in my hands.

"There, is no need of that, darling," he said, getting one of them and putting it to his lips. "Here you are fearing dangers again. Daisy -with truth on your side and on mine, nothing can separate us permanently."

"But for the present," - I said as soon as I could speak. "I am sure our chance for the future is better if we are patient and wait now."

"Patient, and wait?" said Mr. Thorold. "If we are patient now? What do you mean by patience? You in Switzerland, with half a hundred suitors by turns; and I here in the smoke of artillery practice, unable to see twenty yards from my drill - and that, you think, does not call for patience, but you must cut off the post-office from our national institutions. And to wait for you is not enough, but I must wait for news of you as well!"

"Christian!" said I, in desperation - "it is harder for me than for you."

He laughed at that; laughed and looked at me, and his eyes sparkled like a shower of fireworks, and then I was sure that a mist was gathering in them. I could scarcely bear the one thing ands the other. My own composure failed. He did not this time answer by caresses. He got up and paced the turf a little distance below me; his arms folded, his lips set, and the steps never slackening. So he was when I could look up and see. This was worse than anything. And the sun was lowering fast, and we had settled nothing, and our time was going. I waited a minute, and then I called him. He came and stood before me, face and attitude unchanged.

"Christian," I said, - "don't you see that it is best - my plan?"

"No," he said.

I did not know what to urge next. But as I looked at him, his lips unbent and his face shone down at me, after a sort, with love, and tenderness and pleasure. I felt I had not prevailed yet. I rose up and stood before him.

"Indeed it is best!" I said earnestly.

"What do you fear, Daisy?" His look was unchanged and feared nothing. It was very hard to tell him what I feared.

"I think, without seeing you and knowing you, they will never let us write; and I would rather they did not know anything about the - about us - till you can see them."

He took both my hands in his, and I felt how hard it is for a woman to move a man's will when it is once in earnest.

"Daisy, that is not brave," he said.

"No - I am not," I answered. "But is it not prudent?"

"I do not believe in cowardly prudence," he said; but he kissed me gently to soften the words; "the frank way is the wisest, always, I believe; and anyhow, Daisy, I can't stand any other. I am going to ask you of your father and mother; and I am going to do it without delay."

"I wish they could see you," I said helplessly.

"And as I cannot be present to do my pleading in person, I must trust you to plead for me."

"You forget," said I; "it is against you that you are a
Northern officer."

"That may depend upon the event of the war," he said; and I saw a sparkle again. Wilful and manly as he could be; but he did not know my father and mother. Yet that last word of his might be true; what if it were? The end of the war! When might that be? and how? If all the Northern army were Thorolds, - but I knew they were not. I felt as if my magazine of words was exhausted. I suppose then my face spoke for me. He loosened his hold of one hand to put his arm round me and draw me to him, with a fine tenderness, both reverent and masterful.

"My Daisy" - he said, - "what do you want of me?"

And I could not tell him then. As little could I pretend to be dignified. Pain was too sharp. We drew very close to each other, and were very silent for those minutes. I would command myself, and did, hard work as it was, and though my face lay on his shoulder. I do not know how his face looked; when he spoke again the tone was of the gravest tenderness.

"What do you want of me, Daisy?"

"I think, this," I said, raising my head and laying my hand on his shoulder instead. "Suppose, Christian, you leave the question undecided - the question of letters, I mean, - until I get there, - to Switzerland, - and see my father and mother. Perhaps I can judge then what will be safe to do; and if I can write, you know I will write immediately."

"And if you cannot?"

"Then - I will write once, to let you know how it is."

He stood still, reading my face, until it was a little hard to bear, and my eyes went down.

"Suppose your father and mother - suppose they are obdurate,
Daisy, and will not have me, being a Northern man and in the
Government service?"

What then? I could not say.

"Suppose it, Daisy."

"Well, Christian?" I said, raising my eyes to his face.

"What will you do?"

"You know, Christian, I must obey my father and mother."

"Even as I my other duty. Well, we are both soldiers. But what would you do, Daisy?"

"Do? -" I repeated.

"Yes," he said very gravely, and with a certain determination to have the answer.

"I should do nothing, Christian. I should be just the same." But I believe my cheeks must have answered for me, for I felt them grow pale.

"What if they chose a Southern husband for you, and laid their commands in his favour?"

"I am yours -" I said, looking up at him. I could not say any more, but I believe Mr. Thorold understood it all, just what I meant him to understand; how that bond could never be unloosed, what though the seal of it might be withheld. He was satisfied.

"You are not brave, Daisy," he said, holding me again very close; "here are these cheeks fairly grown white under my supposings. Does that bring the colour back?" he added laughing.

"Christian," I said, seizing my time while my face was half hidden, "what would you do, supposing I should prove to be a very poor girl?"

"What is that?" said he, laughing more gayly, and raising my face a little.

"You know what our property is."

"No, I do not."

"You know - I mean, you know, my father's and mother's property is in Southern lands mostly, and in those that cultivate them."

"Yes. I believe I have understood that."

"Well, I will never be the owner of those people - the people that cultivate those lands; and so I suppose I shall not be worth a sixpence; for the land is not much without the people."

"You will not be the owner of them?"

"No."

"Why do you tell me that?" said Mr. Thorold gravely.

"I wanted you to know -" I said, hesitating and beginning very much to wish my words unsaid.

"And the question is, what I will do in the supposed circumstances? Was that it?"

"I said that," - I assented.

"What shall I do?" said Mr. Thorold. "I don't know. If I am in camp, I will pitch a tent for my wife; it shall have soft carpets and damask cushions; as many servants as she likes, and one in especial who will take care that the others do her bidding; scanty accommodations, perhaps, but the air full of welcome. She will like it. If I am stationed in town somewhere, I will fill her house with things to please her. If I am at the old farm, I will make her confess, in a little while, that it is the pleasantest place she ever saw in her life. I don't know what I will do! I will do something to make her ashamed she ever asked me such a question."

"Oh, don't!" said I, with my cheeks burning. "I am very much ashamed now."

"Do you acknowledge that?" he said, laughing and taking his revenge. "So you ought."

But then he made me sit down on the grass again and threw himself at my feet, and began to talk of other things. He would not let me go back to the former subjects. He kept me in a state of amusement, making me talk too about what he would; and with the light of that last subject I had unluckily started, shining all over his face and sparkling in his eye and smile, until my face was in a condition of permanent colour. I had given him an advantage, and he took it and played with it. I resolved I would never give him another. He had gone back apparently to the mood of that evening at Miss Cardigan's; and was full of life and spirits and mischief. I could do nothing but fall in with his mood and be happy; although I remembered I had not gained my point yet; and I half suspected he had a mind I should not gain it. It was a very bright, short half hour; and then I reminded him it was growing late.

"Moonlight -" he said. "There is a good large moon, Daisy."

"But Mrs. Sandford -" I said.

"She knows you are your own mistress."

"She thinks I am," I said. "You know better."

"You are mine," said Mr. Thorold, with gentle gravity, immediately. "You shall command me. Do you say go, Daisy?"

"May I influence you in something else?" I said putting my hand in his to enforce my words.

"Eh?" said he, clasping the hand. "What, Daisy?"

"Christian, I want you not to write to my father and mother until I give you leave." I thought I would let go arguing and try persuasion.

He looked away, and then looked at me; - a look full of affection, but I saw I had not moved him.

"I do not see how we can settle that, Daisy."

"But you said - you said -"

"What?"

"You said just now, you intimated, that my wishes would have weight with you."

He laughed a little, a moved laugh, and kissed me. But it was not a kiss which carried any compromise.

"Weight with me? Yes, a little. But with me, Daisy. They must not change me into somebody not myself."

"Would that? -"

"If I could be content to have your faith in secret, or to wait to know if I might have it at all? I must be somebody not myself, Daisy."

I pondered and felt very grave. Was it true, that Mr. Thorold, though no Christian, was following a rule of action more noble and good than I, who made such professions? It was noble, I felt that. Had my wish been cowardly and political? Must not open truth be the best way always? Yet with my father and mother old experience had long ago taught me to hold my tongue and not speak till the time came. Which was right? I felt that his rule of action crossed all my inner nature, if it were not indeed the habit which had become second nature. Mr. Thorold watched me.

"What is it, Daisy? - my Daisy?" he asked with a tender inquisitiveness, though looking amused at me.

"I was thinking -" I answered, - "whether you are a great deal better than I am."

"Think it by all means," he said laughing. "I am certainly a good deal braver. But what else, Daisy? there was something else."

"That," said I. "I was thinking of my habit, all my life long, of keeping things back from my father and mother till I thought it was safe to show them."

"Are you going to let that habit live? What lessons you will have to learn, my little Daisy! I could never bear to have my wife afraid of me."

"Of you!" I said. "I never should." - But there I stopped in some confusion, which I knew my neighbour enjoyed. I broke up the enjoyment by standing up and declaring that it was now time to go.

We had a pretty ride home. My mind was disburthened of its various subjects of care which I had had to communicate to Mr. Thorold; and although I had not been able entirely to prevail with him, yet I had done all I could, and my conscience was clear. I let myself enjoy, and the ride was good. Mr. Thorold said we must have another; but I did not believe that feasible.

However, it fell out so. Dr. Sandford lingered on in the same disabled state; his sister-in-law was devoted to her attendance on him; I was left to myself. And it did come to pass, that not only Mr. Thorold and I had walks continually together; but also we had one more good ride. I did not try moving him again on the point of my father and mother. I had read my man and knew that I could not. And I suppose I liked him the better for it. Weakness is the last thing, I think, that a woman forgives in men, who ought to be strong. Christian was not weak; all the more he was gentle and tender and thoughtful for those who were. Certainly for me. Those days, those walks, - what music of thought and manner there was in them! The sort of protecting care and affection I had from him then, I never had from any other at any time. Care that seemed to, make my life his own; affection that made it something much before his own; but all this told, not in words, which could not have been, but in indescribable little things of manner and tone; graces too fine to count and measure. Once I had fancied I ought to put more reserve into my manner, or manage more distance in his; that thought fled from me after the first afternoon's ride and never came back. I did not take care for myself; he took care for me. The affection that held me as a part of himself, held me also as a delicate charge more precious than himself; and while he protected me as one who had a right to do it, he guarded me also as one whose own rights were more valuable than his. He never flattered, nor praised, nor complimented me; or with rare exceptions; but he showed me that he lived for me, and sometimes that he knew I lived for him.

What days and walks! The extreme and impending gravity of the time and the interests at work, lent only a keen and keener perception of their preciousness and sweetness. Any day our opportunities might suddenly come to an end; every day they were welcomed as a special fresh gift. Every evening, as soon as Mr. Thorold's engagements allowed it, he met me on the avenue, and we walked until the evening was as far spent as we durst spend it so. I basked in a sunshine of care and affection which surrounded me, which watched me, which catered to my pleasure, and knew my thoughts before they were spoken. We were both grown suddenly older than our years, Mr. Thorold and I; the coming changes and chances in our lives brought us to life's reality at once.

One ride besides we had; that was all. Except one other experience; which was afterwards precious to me beyond price.

As it became known that Dr. Sandford's illness was persistent and not dangerous, and that I was in consequence leading a (supposed) bitterly dull life; it naturally happened that our acquaintances began to come round us again; and invitations to this or that entertainment came pouring upon me. I generally refused; but once thought it, best, as a blind to Mrs. Sandford, to accept an invitation to ride. Mrs. Sandford as before demurred, but would not object.

"Who is it this time, Daisy?" she asked.

I named Major Fairbairn; luckily also an officer whom I had known the last summer at West Point.

"Nothing but officers!" she remarked in a dubious tone. "Not much else to be had here."

"And nothing much better anywhere," I said, "when, one is going on horseback. They know how to ride."

"All Southerners know that. By the way, Daisy, I have heard yesterday of Lieutenant Gary. He is in Beauregard's army."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Quite, I think. I was told by Mr. Lumpkin; and he knows all the Southern doings, and people."

"Then he ought not to be here." I said. "He may let them know our doings."

"Ours!" said Mrs. Sandford. "How fierce you are. Is Major Fairbairn South or North? I don't remember."

"From Maine."

"Well. But, Daisy, what will your father and mother say to you?"

There was no use in considering that question. I dismissed it, and got ready for the major and my horse. Mounted, my companion asked me, where should we go? I had considered that point; and after a little pause asked, as coolly as I could, where there were any troops drilling in cavalry or artillery exercises. Major Fairbairn pondered a minute and told me, with rather a rueful countenance.

"Let us go there first," I said. "It is an old story to you; but I never saw such a thing. I want to see it and understand it, if I can."

"Ladies like to see it, I know," said the major.

"You think, we cannot understand it?"

"I don't see how you should."

"I am going to try, Major Fairbairn. And notwithstanding your hopeless tone, I expect you to give me all the help you can."

"I think, the less you understand of it, the better," said the major.

"Pray why?"

"Doesn't seem comfortable knowledge, for those who cannot use it."

"Men think that of many things," I said. "And they are much mistaken. Knowledge is always comfortable. I mean, it is comfortable to have it, rather than to be ignorant."

"I don't know -" said the major. "Where ignorance is bliss -"

"Ignorance never is bliss!" I said energetically.

"Then the poet must be wrong."

"Don't you think poets may be wrong as well as other people,
Major Fairbairn?"

"I hope so! or I should wish to be a poet. And that would be a vain wish for me."

"But in these war matters," I resumed, as we cantered on, "I am very much interested; and I think all women ought to be - must be."

"Getting to be serious earnest -" said the major, resignedly.

I was silenced for a while. The words, "serious earnest," rang in my heart as we went through the streets.

"Is it getting to be such serious earnest?" I asked as lightly as I could.

"We shall know more about it soon," the major answered. His carelessness was real.

"How soon?"

"May be any day. Beauregard is making ready for us at Manassas
Junction."

"How many men do you suppose he has?"

"Can't tell," said the major. "There is no depending, I think myself, on any accounts we have. The Southern people generally are very much in earnest."

"And the North are," I said.

"It is just a question of who will hold out best."

I thought I knew who those would be; and a shiver for a moment ran through my heart. Christian had said, that the success of his suit with my father and mother might depend on how the war went. And certainly, if the struggle should be at all prolonged and issue in the triumph of the rebels, they would have little favour for the enemies they would despise. How if the war went for the North?

I believe I lost several sentences of my companion in the depth of my musing; remembered this would not do; shook off my thoughts and talked gayly, until we came to the place where he said the drilling process was going on. I wondered if it were the right place; then made sure that it was; and sat on my horse looking and waiting, with my heart in a great flutter. The artillery wagons were rushing about; I recognised them; and a cloud of dust accompanied and swallowed up their movements, a little too distant from me just now to give room for close observation.

"Well, how do you like it, Miss Randolph?" my major began, with a tone of some exultation at my supposed discomfiture.

"It is very confused -" I said. "I do not see what they are doing."

"No more than you could if it was a battle," said the major.

"Won't they come nearer to us?"

"No doubt they will, if we give them time enough."

I would not take this hint. I had got my chance; I was not going to fling it away. I had discerned besides in the distant smoke and dust a dark figure on a gray horse, which I thought I knew. Nothing would have drawn me from the spot then. I kept up a scattering fire of talk with my companion, I do not know how, to prevent the exhaustion of his patience; while my heart went out at my eyes to follow the gray horse. I was rewarded at last. The whole battery charged down upon the point where we were standing, at full gallop, "as if we had been the Secession army," Major Fairbairn remarked; adding, that nothing but a good conscience could have kept me so quiet. And in truth guns and horses and all were close upon us before the order to halt was given, and the gunners flung themselves from the wagons and proceeded to unlimber and get the battery in working order, with the mouths of the cannon only a few yards from our standing-place. I hardly heard the major now, for the gray horse and dark rider were near enough to be seen, stationed quietly a few paces in the rear of the line of guns. I saw his eye going watchfully from one point to another of his charge; his head making quick little turns to right and left to see if all were doing properly; the horse a statue, the man alive as quicksilver, though nothing of him moved but his head. I was sure, very sure, that he would not see me. He was intent on his duty; spectators or the whole world looking on were nothing to him. He would not even perhaps be conscious that anybody was in his neighbourhood. I don't know whether I was most glad or sorry; though indeed, I desired nothing less than that he should give any sign that he saw me. How well he looked on horseback, I thought; how stately he sat there, motionless, overseeing his command. There was a pause now; they were all still, waiting for an order. I might have expected what it would be; but I did not, till the words suddenly came out -

"Battery - Fire!"

The voice went through my heart; but my horse's nerves were immediately as much disturbed as mine. The order was followed by a discharge of the whole battery at once, sounding as the burst of one gun. My horse, exceedingly surprised, lifted his fore feet in the air on the instant; and otherwise testified to his discomposure; and I had some little difficulty to keep him to the spot and bring him back to quietness. It was vexatious to lose such precious minutes; however, we were composed again by the time the smoke of the guns was clearing away. I could hardly believe my eyes. There lay the cannon, on the ground, taken from their carriages; the very carriages themselves were all in pieces; here lay one wheel, there lay another; the men were sitting around contentedly.

"What is the matter?" I exclaimed.

"The officer in charge of the drill, seeing what mischief his guns have unwittingly done, you see, Miss Randolph, has taken his battery to pieces. He will not fire any more while you are here. By George!" said the major, "I believe here he comes to tell us so."

I wished myself away, as I saw the gray horse leap over some of the obstacles before him and bear down straight towards me. I bowed low, to hide various things. Mr. Thorold touched his cap gravely, to the major as well as to me, and then brought his gray horse alongside.

"Your horse does not like my battery," he remarked.

I looked up at him. His face was safely grave; it meant business; but his eyes sparkled a little for me; and as I looked he smiled, and added,

"He wants a spur."

"To make him run? I had difficulty enough to prevent his doing that just now, Mr. Thorold."

"No; to make him stand still. He wants punishing."

"Miss Randolph deserves a great deal of credit," said the major. "But all Southern women know how to ride; and the men to fight."

"We are going to have a hard time then," said Thorold; with a wilful presuming on his privileges.

"But what have you done with your battery?" I asked.

"Taken it to pieces - as you see."

"Pray, what for? I thought something was the matter."

"Nothing was the matter, I am glad to know," Thorold said looking at me. "It is sometimes necessary to do this sort of thing in a hurry; and the only way to do it then in a hurry, is to practise now when there is no hurry. You shall see how little time it will take to get ready for another order to fire. But Miss Randolph had better be out of the way first. Are you going farther?"

The major said he hoped so, and I answered certainly.

"I shall fire no more while you are here," Thorold said as he touched his cap, and he gallopped back to his place. He sat like a rock; it was something pretty to see. Then came an order, which I could not distinguish; and in an incredibly short time wheels were geared, guns were mounted, and the dismantled condition of everything replaced by the most alert order. The major said it was done very well, and told me how quick it could be done; I forget, but I think he said in much less than a minute; and then I know he wanted to move; but I could not. I held my place still, and the battery manoeuvred up and down the ground in all manner of directions, forming in various forms of battery; which little by little I got the major partially to explain. He was not very fluent; and I did not like his explanations; but nevertheless it was necessary to give him something to do, and I kept him busy, while the long line of artillery wagons rushed over the ground, and skirted it, and trailed across it in diagonal lines; walking sometimes, and sometimes going at full speed of horses and wheels. It stirred me, it saddened me, it fascinated me, all at once; while the gray horse and his rider held my eye far and near with a magnet hold. Sometimes in one part of the line, sometimes in another, the moving spirit and life of the whole. I followed and watched him with eye and heart, till my heart grew sick and I turned away.

CHAPTER VI. IN THE FIRE

My ride with Major Fairbairn made me unsettled. Or else it was my seeing Mr. Thorold at his drill. A certain impatience seized me; an impatience of the circumstances and position in which I found myself privately, and of the ominous state and position of affairs in public. The horizon black with clouds, the grumble of the storm, and yet the portentous waiting and quiet which go before the storm's burst. It irked me to see Mr. Thorold as I had seen him yesterday; knowing ourselves united, but standing apart as if it were not so, and telling a lie to the world. It weighed on me, and I half felt that Christian was right and that anything openly acknowledged was easier to bear. And then Major Fairbairn's talk had filled me with fears. He represented things as being so very threatening, and the outbreak of the storm as being so very near; I could not regain the tranquillity of the days past, do what I would. I did a very unwise thing, I suppose, for I went to reading the papers. And they were full of Northern preparations and of Southern boastings; I grew more and more unsettled as I read. Among other things, I remember, was a letter from Russell, the Times correspondent, over which my heart beat wearily. For Mr. Russell, I thought, being an Englishman, and not a party to our national quarrel, might be expected to judge more coolly and speak more dispassionately than our own writers, either South or North. And the speeches he reported as heard from Southern gentlemen, and the feelings he observed to be common among them, were most adverse to any faint hope of mine that the war might soon end, or end advantageously for the North, or when it ended, leave my father and mother kindly disposed for my happiness. All the while I read, a slow knell seemed to be sounding at my heart. "We could have got on with those fanatics if they had been either Christians or gentlemen" - "there are neither Christians nor gentlemen among them." "Nothing on earth shall ever induce us to submit to any union with the brutal, bigoted blackguards of the New England States, who neither comprehend nor regard the feelings of gentlemen." That was like what Preston said. I recognised the tone well. And when it was added, "Man, woman, and child, we'll die first" - I thought it was probably true. What chance then for Christian and me? "There is nothing in all the dark caves of human passion," Mr. Russell wrote, "so cruel and deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees." The end of the letter contained a little comfort in the intimation of more moderate counsels just then taking favour; but I went back to my father and mother, and aunt, and Preston, and others; and comfort found no lodgment with me. Then there was an extract from a Southern paper, calling Yankees "the most contemptible and detestable of God's creation" - speaking of their "mean, niggardly lives - their low, vulgar and sordid occupations" - and I thought, How can peace be? or what will it be when it comes?

I went out for my usual evening walk, longing and half dreading to see Mr. Thorold; for I did not like to show him my fears; they gave him pain; and yet at the same time I wanted him to scold them away. But this time I did not see him. I walked the avenue, at first eagerly, then anxiously; then with an intense pressing pain and suspense which could hardly be borne. Neither Thorold nor Thorold's horse appeared among all the figures moving there; and after walking as long as I dared, I was fain to go home with that pain in my heart. It seemed, as I went up the stairs to my room, almost as if I could die at once with it. Yet I had to make my hair smooth and meet Mrs. Sandford at tea, and hear all her little details about Dr. Sandford's illness; which, as they were precisely the same as those of the day before, had nothing even to hold my attention for a moment. But I attended. It was necessary. And I eat toast and drank tea. That was necessary too; with every mouthful a stab of pain, and every little ordinary incident of the tea-table a wrenching of my heartstrings. One does those things quietly and the world never knows. But I hailed it as a great relief when Mrs. Sandford rose from the table.

"Poor Daisy!" she said. "I must leave you to yourself again - all alone. It's too bad!"

"I like it very well so," I told her.

"It mustn't go on," she said. "Really it must not. You will mope, if you don't already. Don't you, Daisy? Where are all your admirers?"

She had touched my face caressingly with her fingers, and I had to look up and meet her. It was one of the hardest minutes of self-control I ever knew. I met her and answered calmly, even coldly; and she went; and I sat down and shrank, I remember how I shrank, lowering my head and neck and shoulders in a crushing reaction from the erect self-assertion of the moment before. The next thing, two hands were on my shoulders and a voice whispered in my ear a question, "what was the matter?". So as no other voice ever asked me that question; - with the tender assumption of the right to know, and an equally gentle hint that there was comfort and help somewhere not far off. Now, however, I only started up with terror at hearing that voice there; - terror instantly displaced by another terror at the reason of its being there. I knew, I can't tell how I knew, by the first glance into Mr. Thorold's face.

"Yes," said he, in a low voice, "I have got orders."

"Where?" I managed to ask. "To do what?"

"I must take a battery across the country to General
Patterson."

"That will take you out of the way," I said.

"Out of the way of what?" said he, drawing me to his breast, and looking down into my face with his hazel eyes sparkling over a depth of something that was not merry. "Out of the way of what, Daisy?" he repeated. "Out of the way of fighting, do you mean? Is that your way of being a proper soldier's wife? It is out of your way, love; that is what I think of."

I hid my face and we stood still. It was no time then to be dignified.

"How long?" - I whispered at last.

"Impossible to tell, you know. I could not meet you this evening. I must be off in an hour."

"To-night?"

"Yes."

There was another silence.

"What is General Patterson doing?" I ventured then.

"I suppose he has to keep Johnston in order. How long will you stay in Washington? - can you tell?"

"Till Dr. Sandford can travel. - He is no better."

"Well!" - and a breath of a sigh came then which went to my heart - "Something will be decided before a few days; and then we shall know a little better where we stand. I must go!"

He clasped me close and gave me kisses all over my face; but I would not have lost one this time. Then he gently put me on the sofa, pressed his lips to mine one last time, and was out of the room in an instant. I listened to every step in the hall; I heard him open the door and shut it; I heard his foot upon the stone steps outside two or three times; and then I had lost all.

I sat very still and stunned for a long time. There seemed nothing to do. I could not rouse myself. It was the fear of being found there that roused me at last. I gathered myself up, and went to my room. Oh days, days! How much one lives through.

I was keen set now for news, army news especially; and I spent hours in studying all the public prints that were within reach of my hand. So contradictory they were, and so confusing, that they made me only the more long for actual living advices. The second day, Major Fairbairn came to ask me again to ride; and though at first I thought I could not, the next feeling of restless uncertainty and suspense decided me. Better be on a horse's back than anywhere else, perhaps. And Major Fairbairn was not a bad person to talk to. But I had to nerve myself forcibly to the task of entering upon the subject I wanted.

"How perplexing the papers are," I remarked, by way of making an easy beginning.

"Find them so?" said the major. "That is because you read all sides."

"How else can one make up one's mind? How can you know what is the truth?"

"Apparently you do not know it that way," said the major, smiling. "No; the way is, to choose your side, and stick to it. Then you stand a chance to be comfortable."

"But you cannot go into society without hearing more sides than one."

"Silence the wrong."

"I want to know first which is right."

"Haven't you found that out yet?" my companion said, with a surprised glance at me. "I thought, Miss Randolph, you were a safe person; all right for the good cause."

"Oh, yes, of course, that is not the question. I do not want to hear both sides to decide that. But I mean lesser questions; movements, probabilities, dangers; the truth of actual events. Those I want to know about."

"I am sure, so do I," said the major.

"I hoped you could enlighten me, Major Fairbairn."

"About movements?" said the major. "Well, our forces are moving; there is no doubt. McDowell is going forward in earnest at last."

"Against Beauregard?"

"Against whatever he meets; and I suppose Beauregard will meet him."

"Then there will be a battle?"

"I hope so."

"Why do you hope so, Major Fairbairn?"

"It is the shortest way to peace, Miss Randolph. But it is not likely that one battle will do it."

"I know it will not if the North succeed," I said; "but how if the Southern army should get the better?"

"You aren't a rebel in disguise?" said the major, looking askance at me. "Is my reputation in danger, to be riding with you?"

"It is just as well to look the truth in the face, Major
Fairbairn."

"So it is; you are right there," said my companion seriously enough. "Well, I look for a long tussle of it, whichever way this particular game goes to-day. It will be well if there is anything left to fight for, by the time it is over."

"There is always the truth" - I said.

"The truth gives poor board wages to its servants, though," said the major. "It is all very well to cry 'victory,' when there is no corn in the hopper."

"Is it likely that Patterson will fight?" I asked, with my heart in my mouth. I had been trying to get this question out; and it seemed to me now as if every word were as big as two.

"Humph! - I don't know," said the major. "I suppose he will, if he can't help it."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, he has got work enough to do," said Major Fairbairn. "I don't know if it is work that he likes. I have some private acquaintance with the man. His business is to keep Johnston busy, so that he will not have leisure to look our way."

"And suppose Patterson does not do his duty?"

"Then we may have too much on our hands. Beauregard doesn't want any help just now." And weary, no doubt, of the subject, the major diverged to some lighter matters of conversation. I tried to answer and make talk, but my heart was very sick. I could hardly know what he was saying; Beauregard, and Patterson, and Johnston, so ran in my thoughts. I suppose the major did not find it out, for he seemed very well satisfied, and at parting said that "after the victory" he would come and have another ride with me.

So I waited now for news. Dull, dreadful days; long with an interminable length of quarters and half hours; heavy with fear. They were not many; for the morning but one, I think, after my last ride, a gentleman stopped me in the street to tell me that firing had been heard that morning, and McDowell had, it was thought, met his enemy. I calculated the days since I had seen Mr. Thorold; speculated on Patterson's probable activity or non-activity, and Christian's consequent place and duty in the position of affairs; and could only know that it was all a confusion of pain. At first I thought to go at once back to the house and give up my walk; but a second thought of that dull weary waiting inside of walls sent me on up the avenue. I might hear something more; at any rate, the open sky was a better breathing-place.

The open sky! Blue and calm as ever; moveless and pure; while the grim strife of a battlefield was raging beneath it. Was there another struggle where Johnston's forces were opposed by General Patterson? And why could I not leave my cares now, as so many a time I had left them, as I longed to leave them this minute, - in the hand that upheld that blue sky? I could not. That is to say, I did in some fashion, which kept me from utterly fainting; but I was not confident; I was not willing that the will of God should be done irrespective of mine, If writhed from under the pressure of a coming possibility. Could I help it? My one first earthly joy, the treasure that gathered up all life's riches for me; could I think of that treasure being scattered and not know that should be left poor? And what if God willed I should be thus poor? Ah, I was not ready.

I had a long, feverish walk, made as long as I could; and came home with a sort of thirst of heart, and very weary. Mrs. Sandford met me, and I had to turn into the parlour.

"Grant is a little better, I think," she said.

I could not find words to speak to her. If he was better, why, then, he would be taking me from Washington. I knew how it would be.

"He is certainly better," she repeated, with exultation in her voice; "and now, my dear Daisy, we will get away from this horrid place. My dear, how - how grey you look! What is the matter? you are tired to death."

I almost wished I was. However, I commanded myself, and told her I had been walking far, and it was hot, and no doubt I was grey with dust.

"And do you know," Mrs. Sandford went on, "they say the attack has commenced. Firing has been heard from some direction down in Virginia; the doctor told me."

"Mr. Vinton told me."

"Did he? while you were out? and you never mentioned it! Daisy, you are the coolest creature! I envy you for that more than for everything else you have got; though people do say - some people - that Miss Randolph's grey eyes are depths of delight. My dear! whose possible encomiums have I hit in your memory, that your cheeks are taking up the matter with such a delicious rose colour?"

She did not know what she touched. It was no vanity, but her words brought up suddenly what Thorold had told his aunt about Vermont lakes, and all the bitter-sweetness of that evening. My heart swelled. I was very near bursting into tears and astonishing Mrs. Sandford.

"Daisy, my dear," she said fondly and half seriously, "you are too great a treasure to be risked out of your parents' hands. The responsibility is weighing upon me. I hope Grant will get well, I am sure, and take us away. What with one sort of danger and another, it is really too much. Fancy, what it would be if we were to lose this battle! Why, the rebels would be here in no time; the doctor said so."

"Well -" I said. I could not tell all my thought; that in such an event I would not be anywhere but where I was, for worlds; unless indeed I could be with the army of General Patterson before Johnston.

"Is Dr. Sandford really better?" I asked.

"He certainly is; I am so glad! and I will tell him you asked so earnestly about him, and that will make him better still. Yes, we will get away now from this dismal place some time, I do believe. Do go and lie down, Daisy; and I will send you some lemonade."

The lemonade stood by me all day; while I thought of the smoke and the conflict to which no refreshment could come. I could not touch the lemonade.

I cannot tell now whether that day was Friday or Saturday. I have tried to recollect, and I cannot. I am not sure whether it was not Thursday. But I know it was Saturday evening when the next thing happened which stands clear in my memory. I was in my own room, forlornly endeavouring to work some worsted embroidery; - though the sickness of my heart seemed to find its way into my fingers, and it was with pain and difficulty that they pulled the needle in and out. It was only more difficult to sit still and do nothing; and to read was impossible. I sat drawing the wool through the canvass-drawing long threads of thought at the same time - when Mrs. Sandford burst in.

"Daisy! - they say McDowell has had a bad time - they have driven him back, or something; isn't it dreadful! - and there you sit embroidering as quiet as can be. But bless me, child! you haven't a bit of colour. Washington will kill us all yet."

"Who told you?"

"Doctor Barnard says it's so; it's all through the city. And if the rebels get the better of McDowell, they'll come straight here, Daisy, and take Washington. Oh, I wish Grant was well enough to set right off to-morrow! but he isn't. How can you be so quiet? I tell you, our army has been repulsed, and how bad it is nobody knows."

"We had better wait till somebody does know," I said. "We have had repulses before. There was Big Bethel - and Vienna - and a great many."

"But this is McDowell and the great army; and Beauregard has hosts at his back."

"Well! -" I said.

"But you are dreadfully pale, Daisy. How can you keep so quiet? What are you made of?"

"I do not think they will take Washington," I said. "I am in no hurry, for my part, to get away. Look - do you say maroon or dark purple for this bit of grounding? I cannot make up my mind."

Mrs. Sandford dived into the purples and browns of my coloured wools; came back again to McDowell and Beauregard, but came back quieted, and presently left the room. Then, I put down my needle and laid my head on the table, and shook from head to foot with the trembling she had given me. And a longing to see Christian took possession of me; a sick, crying thirst for the sight, if it were only for a minute; the impatient agony of self-will. Necessity's bands and manacles put it down after a time.

The next day was Sunday. I went to church alone, and with my usual average of calm. But I heard some one say to his neighbour, that there was a great battle going forward - with what promise nobody knew. The words sent me home with a sort of half breath. I avoided Mrs. Sandford, took no dinner; and in the afternoon feverishly crept out to church again. The air seemed to me full of bodings. Yet I heard nothing. I saw people whisper each other, and nod; I thought good news was given and received, and I breathed a little easier. It was not till I was coming out from the service that any one spoke to me. I found myself then near a gentleman whom we knew.

"Glorious news, Miss Randolph!" he half whispered. "General
Scott will dine with a good appetite to-day."

"What is the news"

"Oh, a great victory! We have not got the details yet, of course; but it seems all is going right."

"It seems going right."

"Yes. You know we have not details yet. There's been heavy fighting, though."

"Is it a general engagement?"

"Oh, yes! All in that could be in. And some that had no business to be in. They say, Johnston has reinforced Beauregard; but they are totally routed, I believe. So it is said."

"Who says it?"

"The accounts from the battlefield, I presume. They are coming in all the time. The Nation has triumphed. I congratulate you. I know you are loyal. Mrs. Sand- ford will be rejoiced. Good afternoon."

It was too sudden, too soon, and too confused. I could not breathe freely yet. Johnston reinforced Beauregard? That was just what Patterson was expected to prevent; ought to have prevented. Then, probably, Patterson had done no fighting? I was pondering, when I suddenly found Major Fairbairn beside me. He belonged with the troops left to guard Washington.

"Oh, Major," said I, "what is the news?"

"Firing down in Virginia, -" said the major, laconically.

"Is it true, that a battle has been won by McDowell?"

"I wish it were," said he; "but in general it is safe not to speak of a fight till it is over."

"Then it is not over?"

"I have not heard that it is."

"But they tell me a fight has been won."

"They tell every conceivable thing in war-time," said the major. "Don't you know that? It is safe to believe nothing."

"Has Johnston joined Beauregard?"

"I am afraid he has. The advices seem to put that beyond disbelief."

"You are afraid! Then the news means nothing to you; nothing good, I mean?"

"The rumours mean nothing to me," said the major, smiling. "The reliable news is really, so far, not much. It is certain there is a battle going on, Miss Randolph, and a battle along the whole line. And it is certain that Patterson had orders to follow up Johnston, and keep him from troubling us. And I am afraid it is also certain that he has not done it - confound him! Excuse me; but a man who don't obey orders deserves to have people swear at him, Miss Randolph."

I left the major at a corner, and before I got home, another acquaintance informed me that the victory was undoubted, though severely purchased, and that the city was in a state of exultation. I did not know what to think. I said as little as possible to Mrs. Sandford; but later in the evening Dr. Barnard came with the details of the day, and the added intelligence that since seven o'clock the firing had recommenced.

"What for? if the victory is sure?" said Mrs. Sandford; and I went to my room feeling that it was not sure. Nevertheless I slept that night. I cannot tell why, or how. Whether it were most akin to weariness or despair, I slept, and quietly, and the whole night through. But I know very well that I awaked with a full sense that it was not to quietness nor peace. I took up my burden as I got out of bed.

My room was at the back of the house. Consequently I heard and saw nothing of the outer world till I came down to the breakfast-room. Nobody was there yet, and I went to the window. The first thing I saw then made my heart stand still. A group was gathered just before the window, on the sidewalk. In the midst a soldier, one of a gay Zouave regiment, not at all gay now, stood talking to a little crowd of listeners; talking in a pouring rain, which nobody seemed to care about. He was wet; his bright uniform was stained and draggled; he had no musket; and his tasseled cap sat on a head which in every line and movement expressed defeat and disgrace. So they all listened who stood around; I read it as well as if I had heard the words they were hearing. I saw dejection, profound sorrow, absorbed attention, utter forgetfulness of present bodily discomfort. I noticed that one man who carried an umbrella had put it down, and stood listening in the rain. Occasionally the soldier raised his arm to eke out his words with a gesture; and then moved a step as if to go on, but they closed around him again and staid him with eager questions or urgings. I was very near throwing up the sash to ask what it all was; and then I thought, what matter! I should know soon enough, But I could not move from the window; and Mrs. Sandford entering and seeing me there came and looked over my shoulder. I did not know it, till I heard her -

"Good Heavens! - Daisy, my dear, what is the matter?"

"We shall hear presently," I said, turning away from the window.

"But what is it?" - And Mrs. Sandford first took my place, and then did what I had been tempted to do; - threw up the sash.

"What is the matter?" she said. "Is there news. Men, is there news?"

I do not know what was answered; I did not hear; I had gone into the middle of the room; but Mrs. Sanford closed the window presently and came to me, looking even pale. A rare thing for her.

"Daisy, there is trouble," she said.

"Yes, -" I answered.

"How do you know? They say - they say, the army is all cut to pieces!"

I could not speak about it. We knew nothing yet; but Mrs.
Sandford went on -

"He says, everybody is killed. All routed and destroyed, the army is. Can it be possible?"

I thought it was very possible: I never had doubted but that the Southerners - as a body - were the best fighters. But I said nothing; while Mrs. Sandford poured out sorrows and fears and speculations in a breath. I could have smiled, but that I could not have smiled. We stood still, looking at each other, nobody remembering breakfast. I was thinking, if the cause was lost, where would Mr. Thorold be then. And I ceased to hear Mrs. Sandford.

"But Daisy!" she said suddenly - "the other army - Beauregard's - they will be here directly to take Washington, if all this is true; and it must be true; or that soldier would not have been out there in the rain. They will be coming here directly, Daisy. And, bless me! how wicked I am! You are standing there, patient and pale, and you have had no breakfast. Come here and let me give you some coffee. Grant said he would be down to dinner perhaps; and how angry he would be."

We drank cups of coffee, but I do not think either of us broke bread.

That was a weary day. All the day long new groups were forming and dispersing in the street, telling and talking over the news; groups of all sorts. Soldiers discoursing to audiences like the one in the morning; knots of officers; twos and threes of business men; debating, inquiring, discussing; all under the dark rain, all with downcast faces and dispirited bearing. Late in the day Major Fairbairn called. He somewhat reassured us. The carnage was not so great; the loss not so tremendous, as we had at first been told; the damage done not so absolutely overwhelming.

"Then you do not think Beauregard will come and take
Washington?" Mrs. Sandford asked.

"I don't know!" the major said, with a smile. "He must be quick about it, or it will be too late."

"But is this a final settling of the question, Major
Fairbairn?" I inquired. "That is what I want to know."

"We have been whipped," he said, looking at me.

"Yes, I know; but the North - will they take this as a settlement of the question?"

"The North!" echoed the Major. "Will they give up, you mean?
Not just yet! The Government does not feel like it. Do you?"

"I am so ignorant -" I answered.

"You must be, - pardon my saying so. Not at all. The sting of the whip will make us move faster. Orders are issued already for the reinforcement and reorganisation of the army. General McClellan is to take command here; and we will get things upon a new basis."

"Is McClellan the man we want?" Mrs. Sandford inquired.

"I cannot say. If he is not, we will wait for another."

"You are very cool, Major Fairbairn!" said the lady.

"It is the best plan, in July."

"But it is very hard to keep cool."

The major smiled and looked at me.

"What has Patterson been doing all this while?" I asked.
Smiles died out of the major's face.

"He has kept cool," he said. "Easy - when a man never was warm."

"And you think, major," said Mrs. Sandford, "you really think that the truth is not so bad as it has been reported. Why, Mr. May was positive the rebels would come and take Washington. You think there has not been such dreadful loss of life after all?".

"A tenth of the story will be nearer the mark," said the major. "But we shall know more particulars to-morrow; and I will step in again, as I can, and let you know what I know. I must not stay now." And with a bow to me, the major went.

I did not stop then to inquire what his bow meant. Nor did I hear Mrs. Sandford's long string of comments and speculations, any further than was necessary to enable me to reply from time to time with some show of connectedness. I was eagerly calculating chances, without any basis of data to go upon. Trying to conjecture General Patterson's probable coming duty, and to what it might lead. If his foe had disappeared from before him, must he not follow on this way, where (I thought) men were so imperatively needed? If he came, there would be fighting for him, certainly, the next time! Beauregard would muster again for the fray; I knew that; and it seemed the Union army was going to make ready also on its side. If Patterson and his command staid where he was, to take care of that part of the country, perhaps it might be a bloodless charge for a while; it might, till the two grand armies should encounter once more, and one or the other get the mastery. Then, how long might it be, before these two armies would be ready to try another, a third tussle together? and would Mr. Thorold be willing to stay permanently where inaction would be his portion? Twenty such incongruous unreasonable questions I was mooting and turning over, while Mrs. Sandford's running fire of talk made it impossible for me to think to any conclusion.

When I went up to my room, however, and got free of her, I sat down to it. There had been no fighting for this bout in that part of the army where Patterson commanded and where Thorold served. So far he had escaped. Now, if Patterson could only be kept in that region, for a little time, and the question between the North and South be brought to an issue meanwhile and decided here -

I was in a fever of hope and fear, cogitating deeply things which I had no means of knowing or settling, when the question suddenly occurred to me, What was I doing? What was I doing? Only, trying to arrange the wheels of Providence; trying to make peace and war; to kill and to keep alive. I was taking and bearing on my shoulders the burden of the nation's armies and of their destiny. It fell on my heart all at once, what I was doing. And my nerves were straining, even now, to throw around my beloved the shield of circumstances; to keep him where he would be safe; to put my hand between his life and a blow. Could Daisy do that? Was her arm long enough, or her eye enough far-seeing? In despair and in humiliation both, I fell on my knees. This must be given up. I must leave armies and battles, yes and every several bullet and cannon ball, yes, yes, and more; I must leave Mr. Thorold's life and heart in other hands than mine. I must put the care of them out of mine; I must give up even the thought of shielding him, or arranging for him. More. Yes, though it pressed upon my heart with the great difficulty, I must be willing to have God do, with him and with me, just what He pleased. How else could I live, with the struggle before me? How else could I live at all as a believing and obedient child of God? "I must," and "I will," are not words for a child to say.

My heart, my heart, how it died within me as I saw my duty! as I saw that it behoved me to give up all, and then wait in patience to see what the Lord would let me have. My heart died first, and then rose again to the struggle. But those only know what a struggle it is, who, have tried. It seems to me, most people, even Christians, do not try. Yet, to "forsake all," the test of discipleship, what is it but to cease saying "I must" and "I will," about anything, and to hold everything thenceforth at the will of God. I spent that night on my knees, when I was not walking the floor. I spent it in tears and in pleading the promises; sometimes almost in despair. But I reached at last a place of great calm. I gave up insisting upon my own will; and though with every nerve of affection throbbing, as it were, I gave up the care of myself and of Thorold; I gave up the disposal of the lives of both. And when the calm was once reached, it grew deeper and quieter, and the throbbing nerves were stilled, and a great burden was taken off my shoulders. And then, the sense of a love better than mine, and of a power stronger than mine, stole over my heart with an infinite sweetness; the parched and thirsty places of my spirit seemed to catch the dews of heaven; and still soothed and quieted more and more, I went to sleep with my head upon the bed's side, where I was kneeling.

CHAPTER VII. DETAILED FOR DUTY

I awaked in the peace of one who has laid his burden down. My joints were a little stiff, from the position in which I had slept; my mind was set free. The charge of the rival armies and their conflicts was no longer on my shoulders; even the care of individual life and safety I thought no longer to secure. Myself I was a soldier, in a different army; and I had been forgetting my business and presuming into the General's province. No wonder my nerves were strained and my heart almost broken. That was now all given up; and I went through my morning duties in a quiet that was profound, if it was also very humble. I had found the only harbour of rest that can be found on the shores of this world; that one which is entered by paying the tribute of one's self-will. The tides of the great sea do not rise and fall there; the anchorage is good; the winds that weep over the waters bring balm with them; and the banner that floats at the entrance bears this inscription -

"He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."

The first thing I heard from Mrs. Sandford was that he doctor was almost well, and would come down stairs after breakfast. I knew what that portended for me; thought I knew; but as I said, I had given up the management of myself and my concerns. "If ye be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?" I got my worsted and sat down stairs at my work, to be ready to see the doctor when he should come. Mrs. Sandford took post at the window; and so we waited. The weather to-day was clear and bright; the street full yet of motley groups, returned soldiers and gathered civilians, looking however far less dismal than the day before. Mrs. Sandford from the window detailed all she saw; while my worsted needle went in and out to an interrupted refrain - "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings" - "Why take ye thought?" -

Then Mrs. Sandford said, "Here comes the major, Daisy. It seems to me he is very attentive -" and in the major walked.

He gave his hand to me, and his eye glanced at the figure in the window. I could not help the thought that he wished it not there. But things too far down had been stirred in me, for a little surface matter like this to move my calm.

"What news, major?" my friend asked.

"Good. How do you do, Mrs. Sandford? I told you yesterday that it would be good."

"Yes, but how good is it, Major Fairbairn?"

"Fine."

"Well, go on and tell us. You are a nice major."

"Thank you. In the first place, as you may remember I said it would be, the lists of casualties are greatly reduced."

"Casualties?" said Mrs. Sandford. "What is that? I am learning so many new things."

"The lists of the killed and wounded."

"Oh! That is what a military man calls casualties, Daisy, my dear."

"It is the term in common use -" said the major, looking somewhat taken aback.

"I know. Pray, Major Fairbairn, have the officers of the army the reputation of making good husbands and heads of families?"

"I have always heard that they did," said the major, colouring a little and by no means free of his astonishment.

"I don't see how they can have any sympathy for little common heartaches and headaches, though, when to be run through the body is such a trifle. They can't, I think, major."

"But Mrs. Sandford -"

"For instance," the lady went on, unmercifully, - "for instance, Miss Randolph has her head taken off by a cannon ball. The doctor and I are desolate; but Major Fairbairn says it is a 'casualty.' Or, the doctor himself may be hit by a shot not intended for him, and put out of charge of his hospital for ever. Miss Randolph and I are in ashes; but our friend Major Fairbairn says it is only a 'casualty.' "

"But friends, Mrs. Sandford, -" the major began.

"Everybody has friends," said Mrs. Sandford. "I was reading in the paper just now a list of these little accidents. One man had his leg shattered by a minie ball; it killed him in a few hours. Another had a charge of grape-shot in his breast; it struck the spine. He is dead. What is grape-shot, Major Fairbairn?"

The major hastily passed to the sideboard in the other room and brought me a glass of water.

"Daisy!" Mrs. Sandford exclaimed. "Are you faint, my dear? These are only casualties. My dear, are you faint? what is the matter? - Bless me, how white you are! What is it?"

I drank the water, and struggled back into composure, at least outwardly; being very much surprised at myself.

"But what is the matter, Daisy? what is the matter? I have said nothing in the world. Cannot you bear that?"

"Major Fairbairn was going to tell us something, ma'am," I said, endeavouring to throw my thoughts off.

"That can wait until you are better."

"No," I said, "do not wait. I am well. What were you going to say, major?"

"Only that things are much better than they were supposed to be yesterday."

"You said that before. Please go on."

"Well, it is always so," said the major. "At first all the stragglers are counted for lost. Then they come in. They are coming in now, by scores, all the while. Instead of thousands killed and wounded, it is found to-day that there are but five or six hundred; and without being particularly hard-hearted, I rejoice at it. That is part of what I was going to say."

The major spoke gravely, and looked at me with an anxious expression. I assured him I was better, and begged him to tell us the rest.

"You have put it all out of my head, Miss Randolph. Will you have - won't you have - something else? - wine? Pardon me, you have not regained your usual colour."

"The best thing would be some more of your good news. I have a great appetite for good news, after yesterday."

"Naturally. Well, the rest of my news is very good. The country is answering the call made upon her."

"The call for fortitude?" said Mrs. Sandford.

"The call for men, - and for pluck, if you like," said the major.

"More men," - said Mrs. Sandford.

"Certainly. We must have men. And from every quarter, wherever we have heard, there comes an enthusiastic response. Sixty thousand new men have been accepted already by the Government; and they are coming in all the while. There will be a very great number of fresh arrivals here in a very few days. Miss Randolph, your question is answered."

"What question, Major Fairbairn?"

"Whether the North would give up, you know."

"I am glad," I said. "I am glad!"

"And even in saying it, you grow pale again, Daisy. You are not well!" Mrs. Sandford exclaimed.

"Perfectly well. These times are exciting."

"Rather too exciting. I like the excitement that brings the blood into the cheeks. Do go out and take a walk; you want fresh air; or yesterday has unstrung your nerves. But you were so quiet, I thought nothing moved you. Do go and take a walk, Daisy."

The major added a quiet word of urging, saying that if I could go at once, he would see that I did not faint before I got home.

I was bewildered, I think, or I should not have gone; but I wanted to get away from the talk and to feel the fresh air; I was stifled; and I went. My nervous perturbation was a surprise to me. I had given up everything, I thought; I was quite calm, ready for everything. I thought I was; and yet, so little a word had unsettled me. So I went with the major. And then, I was brought to myself presently by more than the fresh air; for I found my friend somewhat too happy in his charge, and more careful of me than I chose he should think there was any occasion for. Moreover, I could not bear to accept his care. I summoned my forces and plunged him into a depth of political and philosophical discussion which he could not get out of till he left me again at my own door. I reassured Mrs. Sandford then; and sat down to my worsted embroidery with a profound sense of how little my strength was. A few minutes afterwards Dr. Sandford came in.

I had not seen him now for several weeks; and I never saw him look better. It immediately struck me, that with him well, it mattered comparatively little whether Mr. Thorold and I were in the same place together or not. Dr. Sandford's clear blue eye was not to be braved with impunity. No more was it to be shunned. But I needed not to shun it. I met it full now. I could, since last night. The disposal of my affairs, if it was not in me, it certainly was not in him. He met me with a smile and a look of pleasure; and sat down by me to watch the progress of my worsted work. So ostensibly; but I soon knew that he was watching not my work, but me.

"How have these weeks been with Miss Randolph? Dull?"

"No," I said; - "not dull."

"How have they escaped that?"

"There has been too much to interest, Dr. Sandford."

"Yet I see you at your Berlin wools. Pardon me - but whenever I see a lady busy with her needle and a bit of canvass, I always think she is hard up for something to think of. Pardon again, Daisy. I know you have no mercy upon slang."

"See how mistaken you are, Dr. Sandford."

"In that? Not in that."

"No; but in your notions about wool and canvass."

"They are true!" said the doctor.

"Ah, but, don't you know that extremes meet?"

"What extremes?"

"All extremes, perhaps. I have been working worsted; for a day or two, just because I had so much to think of."

"They have been exciting days," said the doctor slowly, "to a sick man who could do nothing."

"Why not to a woman, for the same reason?"

"Have they tried you very much, Daisy?"

"Why, she was turning faint here a little while ago," broke in Mrs. Sandford, "because I was giving an account of some wounded soldiers I had read about in the papers; and the major and I persuaded her to go out and take a walk to recover herself."

"The major? - that is indefinite, though you use the definite article. What major?"

"Oh, we have a number of military friends. They have kept us alive since you have been shut up. What is this one, Daisy? He is a very good one. Major Fairbairn."

"Fairbairn? I do not know him," said the doctor.

"It is not necessary that you should know everybody," said his sister-in-law. "Daisy knows him very well."

"And likes him -" said the doctor; "or he could not have a share in persuading Miss Randolph to anything."

"Yes, I like him," I said. I thought, the more friends in the army I had, the better; and also, that Dr. Sandford must not be permitted to push his lines too far.

"Who is Major Fairbairn?"

"I do not know; he is from Maine or New Hampshire, I think."

"Your parents, Daisy, would not desire these Northern associations for you; would they?"

I do not know with what calm I faced the doctor and answered him. "These Northern associations" - the words touched the innermost beatings of my heart - if such an expression can be used. Yet I looked at Dr. Sandford in absolute calm, knowing all that the doctor did not know, and spoke with perfect composure.

"I cannot escape them, you know, Dr. Sandford, unless I were to go over to the enemy's lines; and I cannot do that."

"I would not wish that," said the doctor.

"Then your feelings continue all with the Northern men,
Daisy?"

"All -" I said.

I went back to my worsted work, but I had a sense that the doctor was studying me. One cannot judge, of course, of one's own manner, or know what is in it; so I cannot tell what had been in mine. The doctor sat and considered me; I thought, in some perplexity.

"Daisy's feelings are appreciated and returned by the Northern men," Mrs. Sandford said, laughing. "Rides and walks - how many rides and walks have you taken, Daisy, these forlorn weeks, with officers of the Northern army? Oh! they are not ungrateful."

Dr. Sandford made no answer, and when he spoke I knew he was not making answer to these words. But they startled me.

"Is there anybody engaged in this struggle, Daisy, that you are concerned for?"

"Certainly!" I said; - "several."

"I was not aware -" the doctor began.

"Some whom you know, and some whom you don't know, and on both sides."

"You have a cousin, I believe, somewhere in the Southern army.
He was at West Point, if I remember."

"Preston Gary. I do not know where he is now, only he is among them. They say, he is with Beauregard. I was very fond of him. Then there is my brother; he either is with them or he will be; and there are still others."

"On the Southern side," said the doctor.

"Those two are on the Southern side," I said. "Others are on the Northern. I am there myself."

"Not exactly in the struggle," said the doctor; "and yet, I do not know. These women!"

I think the doctor was baffled by my perfect quietness and readiness. He spoke presently in a disengaged manner, -

"Mr. Ransom Randolph is in no danger at present. I know from a word in a late letter from your father, that he is in Europe still. Would you not like to get out of this confused state of things, and join them there?"

"I would like better to go if it was peace here," I said.

"Would you? Then you are not afraid lest the rebels should take Washington and confiscate the whole of us?"

"Major Fairbairn thinks the danger of that is past."

"He does! However, other dangers might arise -"

"I knew you would not think Washington very safe ground for us," Mrs. Sandford rejoined.

"Mrs. Sandford is at her own risk. But I should hardly be doing the duty of a good guardian if I risked anything, where so important a charge is committed to me. I shall get you away from here without delay. How soon can you both be ready?"

I wanted to say I was ready, but I could not get out the words. My two friends debated the matter, and the doctor fixed his own time. The day after to-morrow.

It was good for me, that I had given up the charge of my own interests; or I never could have maintained the ease of manner which it was desirable to maintain in face of this proposition. I was very calm, remembering that "a man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." I went on with my worsted stitching under the eye of the doctor. I do not know why he watched me so.

"Has anybody ventured to tell you, Miss Randolph, that you have changed within a few months?" This question was put after I had forgotten the doctor and was marching somewhere before a battery in Patterson's column. I started a little.

"Yes, indeed! has she not?" exclaimed Mrs. Sandford. "Changed!
She came out of school the dearest little schoolgirl that ever
lived; or I should say, she went back to school so, last year.
What has the year done to you, Daisy?"

"What has it done to me?" I replied, smiling at her. "How am I changed?"

"Changed!" Mrs. Sandford repeated. "Tell her, Grant, what is she now?"

"She would not thank me for telling her," said the doctor.

"But I will thank you, Mrs. Sandford," I said. "I was 'the dearest little schoolgirl.' "

"My dear, you are not that now," Mrs. Sandford said solemnly.

"It all comes to this, Daisy," said the doctor. "You are a psychological puzzle to me. For the matter of that, now I think of it, you always were. When you went to visit Molly Skelton, and carried rose-bushes round the country in your pony-chaise, just as much as now. You are not the same Daisy, however."

"Yes, I am; just the same," I said earnestly.

"Fancy it!" said Mrs. Sandford. "My dear, you do I not see yourself; that is clear."

"I would like to do the same things again," I insisted. But that nearly choked me. For a vision of myself in my happy pony-chaise; the free, joyous child that I was, ignorant of soldiers and wars, further than as I knew my dear Captain Drummond; the vision of the Daisy that once was, and could never be again; went nigh to shake all my composure down. The emotion came with a rush, and I had nearly succumbed to it.

"Miss Randolph has a philosophy," the doctor went on, still watching me, - "which is not common to the world, and which I have hitherto in vain endeavoured to fathom. I have always fancied that I should be happier if I could find it out."

"Did I never tell you what it was, Dr. Sandford?"

"Never - intelligibly. You will excuse me. I do not mean to accuse you, but myself."

"But you know what it is," I said, facing him. "My philosophy, as you call it. It is only, to live for the other world instead of this."

"Why not live for this world, while you are in it, Daisy?"

"I am not going to stay in it."

"I hope, very long!" said the doctor - seriously. "And do you not think that people are meant to enjoy this world, while they have it?"

"Yes, when they can," I answered; remembering vividly that enjoyment is not always the rule. "But I enjoy the world better than you do, Dr. Sandford; because, living for the other, I take the good of both. And if this fails at any time, the other - cannot."

Dr. Sandford's blue eye went as deep into mine, and into me, I think, as it could; and he did not look satisfied.

The preparations for our journey were pressed with a diligence that admitted of no delay, all that day and the next. I was quietly busy too, thinking that it did not matter; that the time must come, and as well then as ever.

I had miscalculated my strength, or my weakness. Or perhaps the emotional part of our nature is never to be depended on. That dim morning of our early departure is fixed in my memory as one of the most heart-sinking times my heart ever knew. My companions were brisk and bright, in travelling mood, taking cars and porters and ticket offices and crowds, as pleasant concomitants of a pleasant affair. Glad to get away from Washington, both of them. And I, alone in my heart, knew what a thread was breaking for me; knew that Thorold's path and mine were starting from that point upon divergent lines, which would grow but further and further apart every day. Until that moment I had not realised what it would be, to leave the neighbourhood of his work and his danger, and cut off all but the most distant and precarious communication between him and me; what it would be, too, to him, to know that I was gone. It did seem then for a minute as if I could not go; as if I must, as necessity, remain within hailing distance of him, and at the headquarters of information. But there was another "must," stronger than mine; I was seated in the car, the whistle blew its mockery of me; and the slow movement which immediately followed was the snapping of the thread, - the parting of the lines. It was something that no human action could stay or avert now; and the gentle motion soon grew to a whirl of speed which bore me relentlessly away. The slow pang of that first stir of the cars, I can feel yet.

It was a dumb pain at my heart all day. I could not understand myself. For several days I had been quiet and prepared, I thought, and submissive; now to-day all was disorder; no preparedness; no quiet. Instead were heartaches and regrets and wild wishes; sometimes in dull and steady force, like a still rain storm; and sometimes sweeping over me with the fury of a tempestuous blast. I had not strength to resist; my utmost was to keep a calm front before my friends. I did that, I think. But what torture is it not, to be obliged to hear and answer all manner of trifling words, to enter into every trivial thought, of people at ease around one, when the heart is bending and bowing under its life burden; to be obliged to count the pebbles in the way, when one is staggering to keep one's footing at all. Yes, and one must answer with a disengaged face, and one must smile with ready lips, and attention must not wander, and self-absorption for a minute cannot be allowed. Perhaps it was good for me.

My companions attended to me well, so that I got no respite all day. Not till night, when I reached my room; and when I had respite, I found no rest. It was great relief to put my head down without fear lest somebody should ask me if it ached; but all night long I struggled with the pain that had fought me all day. The next morning I went to find Miss Cardigan. To my great disappointment she was not at home; and would not be at home, I was told, under a week.

I passed slowly in, over the familiar stones of the marble floor, in through the empty rooms, to the innermost one which opened upon the little conservatory. That too was stripped of its beauties; most of the plants were set out in the open ground, and the scaffolding steps were bare. I turned my back upon the glass door, which had been for me the door to so much sweetness, and sat down to think. Not only sweetness. How strange it was! From Miss Cardigan's flowers, the connecting links led on straight to all my sorrow and heartache of the present and perhaps of many future days. They had led me here; and here Mr. Thorold had said words to me that had bound him and me together for the rest of our lives, and made his welfare my welfare. And now, he was in the shock of battlefields; and I - afar off - must watch and listen. And I could not be near and watch. I must be where even good news would be no news, except of the past; where nobody would speak to me of Mr. Thorold, and where I could not speak of him to anybody. I was sure, the more I thought of it, that the only possible chance for a good issue to our engagement, would be to wait until the war should be over; and if he persisted in his determination of speaking to my father and mother before such a favourable conjuncture, the end would be only disaster. I somewhat hoped, that the pressure of active duty on his part, or some happy negligence of post-office officials, or other contingency, might hinder such a letter as he had threatened from coming to my father's hands at present.

Meanwhile, in Miss Cardigan's little room, I struggled for a right mind. If I was sorrowful, I told myself, I was also glad. If I pitied myself a little for all that had happened, it was also true that I would not have undone it - that is, my part in it, - for the world. I would rather belong to Mr. Thorold, even through all this pain, than be nothing to him and have him nothing to me. Yes, even going away on my distant journey to Europe, the knowledge of his love was a richer jewel in my heart than any other of earth's jewels that I carried. So what was I crying about?

I washed away some of the soreness of the days past in those tears. And then I came quietly back to my position; willing that God should dispose of me and do with me what He pleased; send me away or bring me home; give or take from me. At least so far I was willing, that I gave up all care-taking and ceased to struggle. My mood grew even sunshiny as I walked back to the hotel where we were all stationed. Hope began to execute little dances before me.

The doctor was busy now, I understood, with trying to find some party with whom I might make the journey to Switzerland. Mrs. Sandford was eager to get back to Melbourne, or its neighbourhood; I always called the whole region by that name. How I wished I could be allowed to go with her, and wait there till an opportunity offered for my further journey! But such were not the views of my guardian.

"Here's devotion!" exclaimed Mrs. Sandford as I came in to tea one evening. "My dear, he says he will go with you himself."

"Where? - who?" I asked.

"Why, Grant, to be sure. He says he will go with you, himself, and then his mind will be easy."

"How can he?" I said. "An army surgeon, - how can he get away?"

"Yes, and in war-time," said Mrs. Sandford. "But the truth is, that he needs to get away, he says; he is not fit for duty; and the voyage over and back will just set him up. I think it is a capital plan, for my part. He won't be gone any length of time, you know; and indeed he must not; he will just run across and put you in the hands of your friends; and so your passage is engaged, Daisy, in the Persia. I only wish I was going along, but I can't. I advise you never to marry Grant. It ties one up terribly."

"It does not tie you very close," the doctor answered.

"When does the Persia go?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed; that is a question," said Mrs. Sandford. "Just think - she sails Saturday, and this is Thursday. Only one single day for you, Daisy; but after all, it is best so. You can be ready just as well, and the sooner you are off now the better. I shall miss you dreadfully, though."

I felt my cheeks turn cold, and I busied myself with my cup of tea.

"You are not so eager to be off, Miss Randolph, as my good sister is to have you," I heard the doctor say.

"No, not quite. I would like better to go if all this trouble in the country were ended."

"That would be to wait some time, I am afraid, said the doctor, helping himself to a piece of toast. And I do not know what in his motion and his manner of speech conveyed to me the notion that he was glad I could not wait. And, my mother's child though I was, I could not thwart him this time.

"It is a good time to be away, I think," said Mrs. Sandford. "I'd keep the news from her, Grant, if I were you. She sits and studies the papers as if her life were in them."

"There will be no news on board the steamer," said the doctor.

Yes, I knew that. The very beginning of my journey was to cut me off from tidings. How should I get them in Switzerland? And I must go too without seeing Miss Cardigan. Well, I thought, nothing can take my best Friend from me.

CHAPTER VIII. DAISY'S POST

Dr. Sandford and I stood together on the deck of the steamer, looking at the lessening shore. I was afraid the doctor should see how I looked, yet I could not turn my eyes from it. I had given up the care of myself; I could bear to see America fading out of my sight; yet it seemed to me as if I left Daisy and her life there, and as if I must be like a wandering spirit from another world till I should come back to those shores again. I would minister to my father and mother, but nobody would minister to me. And I thought it was very likely very good for me. Maybe I was in danger of growing selfish and of forgetting my work and all happiness except my own and Thorold's. I could do nothing for either of those now; nothing actively. But I called myself up as soon as that thought passed through me. I could always pray; and I could be quiet and trust; and I could be full of faith, hope and love; and anybody with those is not unhappy. And God is with his people; and he can feed them in a desert. And with that, I went down to my stateroom, to sob my heart out. Not altogether in sorrow, or I think I should not have shed a tear; but with that sense of joy and riches in the midst of trial; the feeling of care that was over my helplessness, and hope that could never die nor be disappointed sin spite of the many hopes that fail.

After that, my voyage was pleasant, as every voyage or journey is when one goes in the Lord's hand and with Him for a companion. I had no news, as the doctor had said, and I laid down all the matter of the war; though I was obliged to hear it talked of very much and in a way that was often extremely hard to bear. The English people on board seemed to think that Americans had no feeling on the subject of their country, or no country to feel about. Certainly they showed no respect for mine; and though Dr. Sandford and one or two other gentlemen could and did answer their words well and cogently, and there was satisfaction in that; yet it was a warfare I did not choose to enter into unless good breeding could be a defence on both sides. They abused Mr. Lincoln; how they abused him! they have learned better since. They abused republics in general, rejoicing openly in the ruin they affected to see before ours. Yes, the United States of America and their boasted Constitution were a vast bubble - no solidity - rather a collection of bubbles, which would go to pieces by their own contact. Specially the weight of dislike and maligning fell on the Northern portion of the country; sympathy was with the South. These natives of the free British Isles were unmistakably disposed to cheer and help on a nation of oppressors, and wished them success. It was some time before I could understand such an anomaly; at last I saw that the instinct of self-preservation was at work, and I forgave as natural, what I could not admire as noble.

This element in our little society troubled somewhat my enjoyment of the voyage. I had some patriotic nerves, if I was an American; and every one of them was often tingling with disagreeable irritation. Besides, ill-breeding is of itself always disagreeable enough; and here was ill-breeding in well- bred people, - worst of all. And I had my own private reasons for annoyance. A favourite theme with the company was the want of soldiers or generals at the North, and the impossibility that a set of mechanics and tradesmen, who knew only how to make money and keep it, should be able in chivalrous and gentlemanly exercises to cope with the Southern cavaliers, who were accustomed to sword and pistol and the use of them from their youth up. Bull Run, they said, showed what the consequence must always be, of a conflict between soldiers with the martial spirit and soldiers without it. It would be much better and cheaper for the North to succumb at once. I had Southern prejudice enough to believe there might be a good deal of truth in this, but I could not bear to hear it or to think it; for besides the question of country and right, the ruin of the North would be disaster to Mr. Thorold and me. I shunned at last all conversation with our English companions, as far as I could, and bent my thoughts forward to the joyful meeting which lay before me with father and mother and brother. Brighter and brighter the prospect grew, as each day brought it nearer; and I sat sometimes by the hour looking over the waters and resting my heart in the hope of that meeting.

"Almost in, Miss Randolph," said the doctor, coming to my side one of those times.

I brought my eyes from the dancing sea, and answered "You are glad."

"Very glad."

"What route will you take, when we get to land?"

"The shortest."

"You do not wish to see anything by the way?"

"I can see enough, after I get to them," I answered.

"You are at a happy time of life!" the doctor said after a pause.

"Are you past it, Dr. Sandford?" I asked, replying, I think, to something in the tones of his voice.

"I do not know. I think, yes. Cologne cathedral will never be to me what it will be to you."

"What will it be to me?"

"I wish you would tell me, when you see it."

"Does it lie in our route?" I asked somewhat eagerly.

"It can - if you choose."

"But I should not want to stop to look at it," I said; "and I could not see it without stopping, I suppose."

"I suppose not. Well, we will push forward as fast as possible. To Lausanne, is it?"

"They were at Lausanne. They were talking of going to
Lucerne."

"To stay?"

"For some time, I think. Papa was getting tired of Lausanne.
We shall know as soon as we reach our port."

"Wonderful things will crowd upon you now, Daisy," the doctor said meditatively. "And you are as ready for them as ever."

"Don't they crowd upon everybody?" I said, remembering what strange ones life had lately brought to me.

"Everybody does not see them - does not know it. You have this peculiarity, that you will not fail to note every one that comes within your knowledge. Europe will be a wonder gallery to you. And life, perhaps."

"Oh, life is now, Dr. Sandford."

He had been looking very grave. He smiled at me then, one of his bright, winsome smiles that the child Daisy used to get. It made my heart sore with longing for him, and sorrow.

"Isn't it a wonder, that I live, and that I shall live for ever?" I said. "That this world is only the portal to glory? Isn't it a wonder, that there is a highway from these low grounds to Heaven's court, and that the gates of brass and bars of iron that stopped the way, are broken asunder? Isn't it a wonder, that the Prince of Heaven came down to open the way and to show it to us? and is there any wonder so great, as that, after this, any mortal should refuse to walk that way?"

"Grant Sandford, to wit!" said the doctor with an odd expression, something between pleased and displeased. "I am afraid, Daisy, he would want an angel to go before him after all."

I remember this little talk well, for it puzzled me and did not seem like Dr. Sandford. I remember nothing else of any interest till we came to Switzerland and I was near my journey's end. We had pushed on, sometimes by night and day; stopping only for necessary meals and refreshment. I wanted no delay. When we reached the glories of the Swiss mountains, even yet distant, my mood oddly changed, and I was no longer in a hurry. My life, I knew, would take a new turn, in among those mountains somewhere; and it might not, I had a shrewd suspicion that it would not, be a turn for my ease and comfort; and even while I was as eager as ever to see my father and mother, at the same time I was willing to take the last steps of the way more slowly, and enjoy what I had and what I hoped for together, before reality should displace anticipation. This is my understanding of the mood as I look back to it; at the time I did not reason, but only was conscious of being ready to linger and willing to lose nothing of novelty and beauty on my way. However, lingering was not possible. By one conveyance and another we pushed our way on, till Lucerne, our place of destination, was reached.

I saw nothing in the town, almost literally, while we were making our way through its streets. I was in a breathless state; my senses could not play, or my mind could receive no impression from them. It was disappointment and relief too, when coming to the house where my father and mother lived, we were told that the family were gone out of town on some excursion and would not be back till evening. The servants told us. This was no hotel, but a nice little private house which my father had hired and where he and my mother were living entirely at home.

I knew I was at home, as my feet pressed the stairs going up to the little drawing-room. "At home." Not since we left Melbourne had the exquisite sensation come over me. It came now like a subtle perfume, pervading and surrounding everything. My eyes filled with tears of great joy, as I mounted the stairs. I would not let Dr. Sandford see them. He, I knew, felt like anything but crying for joy. He was certainly very honestly fond of me and of my company, and I was grateful for it.

The servant led us to a little drawing-room, out of which another opened; over the simple furniture of which my mother's hand had thrown a spell of grace. And luxurious enjoyment too; that belonged to her. A soft rug or two lay here and there; a shawl of beautiful colour had fallen upon a chair-back; pictures hung on the walls, - one stood on an easel in a corner; bits of statuary, bronzes, wood-carvings, trifles of art, mosaics, engravings, were everywhere; and my mother's presence was felt in the harmony which subdued and united all these in one delicious effect. My mother had almost an Oriental eye for colour and harmony. It was like seeing a bit of her, to be in her room. I lost my head for a moment, standing in the middle of the floor; then I turned to Dr. Sandford.

"Now you are happy," he said, extending his hand - "and I will leave you."

"No, Dr. Sandford - you will sit down and be happy too."

"You could command me to sit down, undoubtedly; but I am afraid my happiness is beyond your power."

"I wish it was not!" I said earnestly. "You have been very good to me, Dr. Sandford."

His face flushed a little and paled, and the eyes which were so fond of reading other people's seemed now to shun being read. I could not understand his expression, but it troubled me.

"Happiness is always beyond other people's power," I said; - "but not beyond one's own."

"That's your confounded theory!" he answered, bringing the word out very gingerly and with a little laugh. "I beg ten thousand pardons, Daisy; but a slight expression of indignation was an unavoidable indulgence just then. You would make every one responsible for all the troubles that come upon him!"

"No - only for their effect upon his happiness," I ventured, doubtfully.

"You think the effect of troubles upon happiness is then optional!" - he said, with a humorous expression so cool and shrewd that I could not forbear laughing.

"I do not mean exactly that."

"Your words were well chosen to produce that impression."

"No, Dr. Sandford - yes, perhaps they were; - but the real truth is, that we may have a happiness that is beyond the reach of trouble. So much is optional."

"With Daisy Randolph," said the doctor. "For the rest of the world, a brown study will never be a golden reflection." He held out his hand as he spoke.

"But are you going?" I said; - "before my father and mother come home?"

"I will call before I leave Lucerne."

"How soon do you expect to do that?"

"Immediately, Daisy; to-morrow. I must hasten back to my post, you know; before there is another Bull Run, if possible. It is very good that you are out of the way of such things," he said, eyeing me earnestly. "The very mention of them - do you know what it does?"

"It gives me a great feeling of pain, I know," I said, trying to rally.

"It does that, I see. I did not know the power of imagination was so strong in you. I thought you were rather a literalist."

"And I think I am," I answered as calmly as I could. "It does not require much imagination. It did not, when I was in Washington."

"It does not now," said the doctor; "for your cheeks have not got back their colour yet. What banished it, Daisy?"

It was the old tone and look I used to meet in my childhood, and to which I always then rendered obedience. For an instant the spell was upon me now; then I threw it off, shook hands with the doctor and parted from him with a bow and smile which told him nothing. And he succumbed in his turn; made me a profound reverence and left the room.

My first feeling was of gladness that he was gone. My next was, the sense that I was under my natural guardians once more. I felt it with a thrill of delight, even though I had a full consciousness that I was going to be far less my own mistress than for some time I had been accustomed to find myself. Dr. Sandford rather took laws from me, in most things. This however did not give me much concern. I went round the rooms to quiet myself, for I was growing more and more excited. I went studying one by one the objects in the little home museum, for such those drawing-rooms were to me. I read, not natural history but family history in them; here my father's hand had been, here By mother's, leaving some token of study, or luxury, or art, or feeling. A very handsome meerschaum seemed to give also a hint of my brother's presence. The home review did not quiet me; I found it would not do; I went to the window. And there I sat down immediately, to hear all that nature said to me; as once Miss Cardigan's flowers.

I had expected to see the town; and it was part of the town no doubt that stretched away before me, but it had rather the beauty of the country. There was nothing regular in streets or buildings, nor compact; the houses scattered away down the hill, standing here and there, alone and in groups, with fields or pieces of fields intermingling. Pretty houses, with quaint dormer windows and high sloping roofs. We were on a height, I found, from which the eye went down delightfully over this bit of the rambling old town. A courtyard, with grass and young trees, was the first thing next the house on this side; which I found was not the front; then the ground fell sharply, and most of the houses stood upon a level below bordering the lake. A stretch of the lake lay there, smooth, still, bearing the reflection of some houses on its opposite edge; where softened under a misty atmosphere another little town seemed to rest on a rising bank. And then, just behind it, rose the mountain, looking down upon lake and towns as if to forbid a thought of foolishness in any one who should ever live there. So, in its beautiful gravity, Mont Pilatte seemed to me, then and always. Are not mountains always witnesses for God? This first time I saw it, a misty cloud had swept across the breast of the mountain and hid part of the outline; but the head lifted itself in sunlight just above the veiling cloud, and looked down in unspeakable majesty upon the lower world. Always my eyes went back to that wonderful mountain head; then fell to the placid lake and the little town sleeping in misty sunlight on its further border; then caught the sharp pointed towers of a church or cathedral close by at my left hand, just within my picture; I could not see the whole church; then back to the soft veiled mountain. A more picturesque combination never went into a view. I sat still in a trance of pleasure, only my eyes moving slowly from point to point, and my heart and soul listening to the hidden melodies which in nature's great halls are always sounding. I do believe, for the matter of that, they are always sounding in nature's least chambers as well; but there is the tinkle of a silver bell, and there is the thunder of the great organ. At any rate I was quieted, comforted, soothed, and entirely myself again, by the time I had listened to Mont Pilatte for a couple of hours.

The day wore on, and the lights changed, and the cloud deepened on the mountain. The lights had not begun to fade yet, though it was the time of long shadows, when a little bustle below and steps on the stairs drew me away from the window and brought me to my feet; but I stood still. The first one was mamma, and her first word of course broke the spell under which I had been standing and brought me into her arms. And that word I pondered many a time afterwards. It was simply, "Why, Daisy!" - but the letters put together tell nothing of what was in the expression. Pleasure and affection there were, of course; and there was something beside, which I could not help thinking gave token of gratified surprise. What should have excited it I do not know, unless it were that my appearance pleased her better than she had expected. It was not surprise at my being there, for the servants had told of that. My father, who was next, said exactly the same words; but his "Why, Daisy!" had an altogether different expression. I flung myself into his arms, and then almost broke my heart with the thought that I had been so long out of them. My father pressed me very close, and kept very still. I felt my mother touch me on the shoulder, and heard her tell me not to be so excited; but I could not mind her. And papa, sitting down, kept me in his arms and held me fast and kissed me, and I sobbed myself into content.

"Is that Daisy?" said mamma. I was sitting on papa's knee yet.
I looked up at her. She was standing beside us.

"Doesn't she look like it?" my father said, fondly, stroking my hair.

"She does not act like it," said my mother.

But I hid my face in papa's neck at that, and he kissed me again.

"Don't you mean to speak to anybody else?" said mamma, with an amused voice.

"Nobody else has any right," said papa. I looked up however, eagerly, and saw what I could only guess was Ransom, he had so grown and changed. He was looking curious and pleased. I got up to salute him.

"Why, Daisy!" said he, returning my embrace with more new than old emotion as it seemed to me, - "you are a sister of whom a fellow may be proud."

"Can't you say as much for him, Daisy?" said my mother.

"As far as looks go -" I answered slowly, surveying him. He was excessively handsome, and his mother's own boy in grace of person and manner. I could see that in the first moment.

"As far as looks go" - my mother repeated. "That is like
Daisy. Is it the very same Daisy?"

I looked up at her, and they looked at me. Oddly enough, we were all silent. Had I changed so much?

"Mamma, there is the difference between ten and seventeen," I said. "I don't think there is much other."

"And between formed and unformed," said my brother Ransom; for my father and mother were still silent, and I could hardly bear to meet their eyes.

"What is formed, and what is unformed?" I asked, trying to make it a light question.

"My opinion is not unformed," said Ransom, - "and your destiny is - formed."

"Papa," said I, "Ransom is very quick in deciding upon my destiny." But with that look into each other's eyes, Ransom's words were forgotten; my father clasped me in a fresh fond embrace and my head went down upon his shoulder again. And we were all still. Words are nothing at such times. I think one rather speaks light words, if any; thoughts are too deep to come out. At last my mother remarked that our toilettes were among the unformed things, and suggested that we should go to our rooms for a little while before dinner. I got up from papa's knee and followed mamma; and passing Ransom with a smile, he suddenly clasped me in his arms and kissed me.

"I am proud of you, Daisy," he whispered.

Arrived in mamma's room, her tenderness came out after her own fashion. She examined me; her hands touched me caressingly; she helped me to dress, although her maid was at hand.

"You did not tell me you had such beautiful hair," she said, when I had unbound it to put it in order.

"Mamma!" I laughed. "Why should I?"

"And there are a great many other things you have not told me," she went on. I had to control myself to prevent a start, though her words meant nothing.

"Of course, mamma," I answered.

"Yes; you could hardly have been expected to give me a catalogue raisonné of your advantages. Do you know them yourself, Daisy?"

"Mamma, - I suppose I know some of them."

"Do you know, for instance, that your skin is exquisite, in colour and texture?"

"Mrs. Sandford used to tell me so," I said.

My mother drew the tips of her fingers over my cheek.

"And now, at my saying that, comes a little rose hue here, as delicate as the inside of a shell. But you have lost all the look of delicate condition, Daisy; this is the colour of perfect health."

"Dr. Sandford has taken care of me, mamma."

"Your father trusted a great deal to Dr. Sandford. Do you think his trust was well placed?"

"Nobody could have taken more care of me, mamma. Dr. Sandford has been very good."

"He always was your favourite," she remarked.

"Well, mamma, he deserved all I have given him."

"Don't give anybody much, - unless I bid you," my mother said, laughingly. "Daisy, you have matured better even than I ever thought you would, or than your aunt Gary told me. Your figure is as good as ever mine was."

She took up one of my hands, looked at it, kissed it, and as she let it drop asked carelessly, -

"What has become of Preston now?"

I felt as if breakers were all around me. "He has joined the
Southern army," I said.

"When did you see him?"

"Not since a year ago."

"Where then?"

"At West Point, mamma. He only graduated this spring."

"Were you long at West Point?"

"Yes, ma'am - some weeks."

"Dr. Sandford did not show remarkable care in that."

"He thought so, mamma, for he found me not well, and took me away immediately from school, without waiting for the term to close. Mrs. Sandford and he, were going to West Point - and so -"

"West Point did you good?"

"I grew well there."

"Your aunt tells me, your voice is very uncommon, Daisy. Is she right in that?"

"Mamma - you can judge better than I. It is not so easy for me to judge how it sounds."

"You know how it sounds to you."

"Yes, but then I am thinking of the music. I cannot tell, mamma, how it sounds to other people."

"Well, we shall be able to judge by and by," my mother said, in a satisfied tone. "Your speaking voice is as calm and sweet as I ever heard."

"Calm? mamma," I said, laughing.

"Yes, child. Don't you know most people's voices have a little thread, if it is not more, of sharpness or roughness, coming out somewhere. It is sure to come out somewhere; in one form of speech or another; with some people it only appears in the laugh, and they should never laugh. Your voice is like a chime of bells." And my mother took me in her arms, half-dressed as I was, and pressed her lips full upon mine; looking into my face and playing with me and smiling at me; finishing with another pressure of her mouth to mine.

"Your lips are very sweet," she said, with a half sigh. "I wonder who else will think so!"

And if one bit of vanity or self-exaltation could have been stirred in my thoughts, though it were by my mother's praises, these last words banished it well. I was sobered to the depths of my heart; so sobered, that I found it expedient to be busy with my dressing, and not expose my face immediately to any more observations. And even when I went down stairs, my father's first remark was, -

"It is the same Daisy!"

"Did you doubt it, papa?" I asked, with a smile.

"No, my pet."

"Then why do you say that as soon as I make my appearance!"

"I can hardly tell - the consciousness forced itself upon me.
You are looking at life with a microscope, - as of old."

"With a microscope, papa!"

"To pick up invisible duties and find out indiscernible dangers -"

"When one is as old as I am," I said, "there is no need of a microscope to find out either dangers or duties."

"Ha!" said my father, folding me in his arms - "what dangers have you discovered, Daisy?"

"I believe they are everywhere, papa," I said, kissing him.

"Not here," he said, fondly; "there shall be none here for you."

"Mr. Randolph," said mamma, laughing, "if Daisy is to be meat and drink as well as scenery to you, we may as well dispense with the usual formalities; but I hope you will condescend to look at dinner as usual."

CHAPTER VIII. SKIRMISHING

That first dinner at home! how strange and sweet it was. So sweet, that I could scarcely hear the note of the little warning bell down in the bottom of my heart. But mamma had struck it up stairs, and its vibrations would not quite be still. Yet there was a wonderful charm in my own home circle. The circle was made larger in the evening, by the coming in of two of Ransom's friends, who were also, I saw, friends of my father and mother. They were two Southern gentlemen, as I immediately knew them to be; MM. de Saussure and Marshall, Ransom's worthy compeers in the line of personal appearance and manner. De Saussure especially; but I liked Marshall best. This I found out afterward. The conversation that evening naturally went back to America which I had just come from, and to the time of my leaving it, and to the news then new there and but lately arrived here. I had to hear the whole Bull Run affair talked over from beginning to end and back again. It was not so pleasant a subject to me as to the rest of the company; which I suppose made the talk seem long.

"And you were there?" said Mr. de Saussure, suddenly appealing to me.

"Not at Manasses," I said.

"No, but close by; held in durance in the capital, with liberators so near. It seems to me very stupid of Beauregard not to have gone in and set you free."

"Free?" said I, smiling. "I was free."

"There will be no freedom in the country, properly speaking, until that Northern usurper is tossed out of the place he occupies."

"That will be soon," said my mother.

"In what sense is Mr. Lincoln a usurper?" I ventured to ask.
"He was duly elected."

"Is it possible Daisy has turned politician?" exclaimed my brother.

"He is not a usurper," said Mr. Marshall.

"He is, if being out of his place can make him so," said De Saussure; "and the assumption of rights that nobody has given him. By what title does he dare shut up Southern ports and send his cut-throats upon Southern soil?"

"Well, they have met their punishment," my father remarked. And it hurt me sorely to hear him say it with evident pleasure.

"The work is not done yet," said Ransom. "But at Bull Run rates - 'sixty pieces of splendid cannon' taken, as Mr. Davis says, and how many killed and prisoners? - the mud-sills will not be able to keep it up very long. Absurd! to think that those Northern shopkeepers could make head against a few dozen Southern swords."

"There were only a few dozen swords at Manasses," said De
Saussure. "Eighteen thousand, Mr. Davis puts the number in his
Richmond speech; and the Northern army had sixty thousand in
the field."

"A Richmond paper says forty thousand instead of eighteen,"
Mr. Marshall remarked.

"Mr. Russell, of the London Times, estimated Beauregard's force at sixty thousand," I said.

"He don't know!" said De Saussure.

"And Mr. Davis does not know," I added; "for the whole loss of cannon on the Northern side that day amounted to but seventeen. Mr. Davis may as well be wrong in one set of facts as in another. He said also that provisions enough were taken to feed an army of fifty thousand men for twelve months."

"Well, why not?" said Ransom, frowning.

"These gentlemen can tell you why not."

"Pretty heavy figures," said Mr. Marshall.

"Why are they not true, Miss Randolph?" Mr. de Saussure asked, bending as before a most deferential look upon me.

"And look here, - in what interest are you, Daisy?" my brother continued.

"Nothing is gained by blinking the truth anywhere, Ransom."

"No, that is true," said my father.

"Daisy has been under the disadvantage of hearing only one side lately," my mother remarked very coolly.

"But about the provisions, Miss Randolph?" Mr. De Saussure insisted, returning to the point with a willingness, I thought, to have me speak.

"Mamma says, I have heard only one side," I answered. "But on that side I have heard it remarked, that twelve thousand wagons would have been required to carry those provisions to the battlefield. I do not know if the calculation was correct."

Mr. De Saussure's face clouded for an instant. My father seemed to be pondering. Ransom's frowns grew more deep.

"What side are you on, Daisy?" he repeated.

"She is on her own side, of course," my mother said.

"I hope there is no doubt of that, Mrs. Randolph," said Mr. Marshall. "Such an enemy would be very formidable! I should begin to question on which side I was myself."

They went off into a long discussion about the probable movements of the belligerent parties in America; what might be expected from different generals; how long the conflict was likely to last, and how its certain issue, the discomfiture of the North and the independence of the South, would be attained. Mingled with this discussion were laudations of Jefferson Davis, scornful reviling of President Lincoln, and sneers at the North generally; at their men, their officers, their money, their way of making it and their way of spending it. Triumphant anticipations, of shame and defeat to them and the superb exaltation of the South, were scattered, like a salt and pepper seasoning, through all the conversation. I listened, with my nerves tingling sometimes, with my heart throbbing at other times; sadly inclined to believe they might be right in a part of their calculations; very sadly sure they were wrong in everything else. I had to keep a constant guard upon my face; happily my words were not called for. My eyes now and then met papa's, with a look that gave and received another sort of communication. When the evening was over, and papa was folding me in his arms to bid me good-night, he whispered, -

"You and I cannot be on two sides of anything, Daisy?"

"Papa - you know on what side of most things I am -" I replied to this difficult question.

"Do I? No, I do not know that I do. What side is it, Daisy?"

"On the Lord's side, papa, when I can find out what that is."

"Make me sure that you have found it, and I will be on that side too," he said, as he kissed me.

The words filled me with a great joy. For they were not spoken in defiance of the supposed condition, but rather, as it seemed to me, in desire and love of it. Had papa come to that? The new joy poured like a flood over all the dry places in my heart, which had got into a very dry state with hearing the conversation of the evening. I went to bed tired and happy.

Nevertheless I awoke to the consciousness that I had a nice piece of navigation before me, and plenty of rough water in all probability. The best thing would be for me to be as silent as possible. Could I be silent? They all wanted to hear what I would say. Every eye had sought mine this past evening.

I was the first in the breakfast-room, and papa was the next. We were alone. He took me tenderly in his arms and held me fast, looking at me and kissing me by turns.

"Are you well now, papa?" I asked him. "Are you quite well again?"

"Well enough," he answered; "not just as I was once."

"Why not, papa?"

"I have never quite got over that unlucky fall. It has left my head a little shaky, Daisy; and my strength - Never mind! you are my strength now, my pet. We should have gone home before this, only for the troubles breaking out there."

I leaned my head upon his breast, and wished the troubles were not! What a division those troubles made, unknown to him, between his heart's happiness and mine - yes, between him and me. Mamma came in and looked at us both.

"It is a very pretty picture," she said. And she kissed me, while papa did not let me out of his arms. "Daisy, you are a beauty."

"She is a great deal better than a beauty," said my father. "But, now I look at you, Daisy - yes, you are a beauty, certainly."

They both laughed heartily at the colour which all this raised in my face.

"Most exquisite, her skin is," said my mother, touching my
cheek. "Did you ever see anything superior to it, Mr.
Randolph? Rose leaves are not any better than that. Pshaw,
Daisy! - you must get accustomed to hear people say it."

"Nobody shall say it to me, mamma, but you."

"No," said my father. "That is my view of it, too."

"Nonsense!" said mamma - "there are a thousand ways of doing the same thing, and you cannot stop them all. Your hair is as fine as possible, too, Daisy, although it has not had me to take care of it."

"But I did just as you told me with it, mamma," I said.

She kissed me again. "Did nobody ever tell you you were beautiful?" she asked archly. "Yes, I know that you did just as I told you. You always did, and always will. But did you not know that you were beautiful?"

"Speak, Daisy," said papa. Said as it was with a smile, it brought childish memories vividly back.

"Mamma," I said, "I have heard something of it - and I suppose it may be true."

They laughed, and mamma remarked that I was human yet. "There is a difference between the child and the woman, you will find, Mr. Randolph."

Papa answered, that it was no very remarkable token of humanity, to have eyes and ears.

"Daisy's eyes were always remarkable," said my mother.

"But, mamma," said I, "in other things there is no difference between the child and the woman. My outside may have altered - my mind is not changed at all; only grown."

"That will do," said mamma.

I was obliged to leave it to time, and hoped to make myself so pleasant that what I could not change in me might be at least tolerated, if it were not approved. It seemed an easy task! I was such a manifest subject of joy, to father and mother, and even Ransom too. A newly discovered land, full of gold, is not more delightfully explored by its finders, than I was watched, scrutinised, commented on, by my family.

That first day, of course, they could not let me out of their sight. It was nothing but talk, all day long. In the evening however our last evening's guests reappeared. The conversation this time did not get upon American politics, so everybody showed to better advantage; I suppose, myself included. We had music; and the gentlemen were greatly delighted with my voice and my singing. Mamma and papa took it very coolly until we were left alone again; then my mother came up and kissed me.

"You have done your duty, Daisy, in improving your voice," she said. "You are a Daisy I am perfectly satisfied with. If you can sing as well in public as you have done to-night in private, papa will be proud of you."

"In public, mamma?" I said.

"Yes. That does not frighten you. Nothing does frighten you."

"No, mamma, but - what do you mean by 'in public'?"

"Not on the stage," said mamma.

"But mamma, - papa," - I said, anxiously, "this is what I want you to understand. I will do anything in the world you wish me to do; only, I am - I must be, - you know, - a servant of Christ."

"I said nothing against that," my mother replied. But my father, clasping me in his arms, whispered, -

"We will be servants together, Daisy."

That word sent me to bed with a whole heartful of thankfulness. I could bear anything now, if his words meant what I hoped they did. And I should have security, too, against any too great trial of my affection and duty to him and to mamma.

An expedition had been arranged for the next day; in which my brother and his friends were to take me upon the lake. Mamma and papa would not go. It was a day, in one sort, of such pleasure as I had never known till then. The beautiful water, the magnificent shores of the lake, the wonderful lights on the mountains, almost took me out of this world; to which they seemed scarcely to belong. I cannot tell what a pang in the midst of this pleasure the thought of Mr. Thorold brought with it. The life I was living now was so very far from his life, and so unlike; my part of the world was now so very distant from his, - there was such an abyss between; - and yet the Swiss hills were so glorious, and I was enjoying them. I began to wonder, as we were sailing towards home in the end of the day, what work I had to do in this new and strange place; why was I here? Perhaps, to learn patience, and have faith grow strong by trial, while all my life hopes waited upon a will that I did not know and must trust. Perhaps, to stand up for Christian truth and simplicity in the face of much opposition. Perhaps, to suffer, and learn to bear suffering.

"You are fatigued, Miss Randolph?" said the soft voice of De
Saussure.

"Or beauty of scenery, so much beauty, makes you melancholy," said Mr. Marshall. "It always makes me so, if I let myself think of it."

"Why should it make any one melancholy?" I asked. "I think beauty has the contrary effect."

"A little beauty. But very great and wonderful loveliness - I don't know why, it always moves me so. It is something too far beyond me; it is unlike me; it seems to belong to another stage of being, while I am held fast in this. It mocks me, - somehow."

"It does not do so with me," I said.

"Ah, it is your world!" De Saussure said, laughing. "It could not do so with you very well."

"But look at Mont Pilatte now," resumed Mr. Marshall, - "with that crown of light on its brow; - does it not give you the feeling of something inapproachable - not literally but spiritually, - something pure, glorious, infinite - something that shames us mortals into insignificance?"

I looked, and I thought I knew why he felt as he did; but I did not think I could explain it to him just then.

"Have you a little of my feeling?" he said again. "Do you understand it?"

"I understand it, I think," I said.

"And do not share it at all?"

"No, Mr. Marshall. Of course, the mountain is great, and I am small; but the purity, and the glory, - that is not beyond reach; and no human being ought to be insignificant, and none need be."

"Not if his life is insignificant?"

"Nobody's life ought to be that," I answered.

"How can it be helped, in the case of many a one?"

"Yes indeed," said De Saussure; "there is a question. I should like to hear Miss Randolph answer it."

One spoke lightly and the other earnestly. It was not easy to answer them both.

"I should like to have you define insignificance first," I said.

"Can there be a more significant word?" said Mr. De Saussure.
"It defines itself."

"A life of insignificance, is a life that does not signify anything," Mr. Marshall added.

"Most people's lives signify something," I said, stupidly, my thoughts running on far ahead of my words.

"Yes, to somebody in the corner at home," Mr. Marshall said, "whose affection cannot make a true estimate. But do most people's lives signify anything, except to some fond judgment of that sort?"

"Who is estimating you, in a corner at home?" said Mr. de
Saussure.

"Nobody - and that you know. Nobody, except my old mammy."

"You are a lucky fellow, Hugh. Free as air! Now I have five or six dear appraisers at my home; who are of opinion that an epaulette and a commission would add to my value; or rather, to do them justice, they are very desirous to have my life - or my death - tell for something, in the struggle which occupies all their, thoughts at present. I do not mean that they have no choice, but, one or the other. And so am I desirous; but - Lucerne is so very captivating! And really, as, I said, one signifies so little."

"One is half of two," said Ransom - "and a hundredth part of a hundred."

"I should like, I think, to be half of two," said De Saussure, comically. "I don't care about being the hundredth part of anything."

"But you are going when I go?" said Ransom.

"Mrs. Randolph says so; and I suppose she will command me.
What does Miss Randolph say?"

"Yes, to my question," said Hugh Marshall.

"I do not quite know what is either question," I replied; "and a judge ought to understand his cause."

"Is it my duty to go and plunge into the mêlée at home, because my mother and two aunts and three sisters are all telling me they will renounce me if I do not? I say, what does one signify?"

"And I say, how may one escape from insignificance? - anyhow?"

"A man with your income need not ask that," said Ransom.

"What does Miss Randolph say?" De Saussure insisted.

"If you will tell me, Mr. De Saussure, what the South is fighting for, I can better answer you."

"That speech is Daisy all over!" said Ransom impatiently. "She never will commit herself, if she can get somebody to do it for her."

"Fighting for freedom - for independence, of course!" Mr. De
Saussure said, opening his eyes. "Is there any question?"

"How was their freedom threatened?"

"Why," said Ransom, hotly, "what do you think of armies upon the soil of Virginia? - invading armies, come to take what they like? What do you think of Southern forts garrisoned by Northern troops, and Southern cities in blockade? Is that your idea of freedom?"

"These are not the cause, but the effect, of the position taken by the South," I said.

"Yes, we fired the first gun, Randolph," said Mr. Marshall.

"Sumter was held against us," said Ransom.

"Not till South Carolina had seceded."

"Well, she had a right to secede!" cried Ransom. "And this right the Northern mudsills are trying to trample out. If she has not a right to be governed as she likes, she is not free."

"But why did she secede?" I asked. "What wrong was done her?"

"You are a girl, and cannot understand such matters!" Ransom answered, impatiently. "Just ask mamma to talk to you; - or I will!"

"Miss Randolph's question is pertinent though," said Mr. Marshall; "and I am ashamed to confess I am as little able to answer it as she. What wrong had they to complain of?"

"Why, Hugh, you certainly know," his companion answered, "that Lincoln was elected; and that if the government is to be in the hands of those who do not think and vote with us - as this election shows it will - we shall be pushed to the wall. The South and her institutions will come to nothing - will be in a contemptible minority. We do not choose that."

"Then the wrong done them was that they were out-voted?" Mr.
Marshall said.

"Put it so!" De Saussure replied, with heat; "we have a right to say we will govern ourselves and sail our own boat."

"Yes, so I think we have," said the other. "Whether it is worth such a war, is another question, Such a war is a serious thing."

"It would be mean-spirited to let our rights be taken from us," said Ransom. "It is worth anything to maintain them."

"It will not be much of a war," resumed De Saussure. "Those poor tailors and weavers will find their workshops are a great deal more comfortable than soldiers' tents and the battle- ground; and they won't stand fire, depend upon it."

"Cowardly Yankees!" said Ransom.

"That is Preston's favourite word," I remarked. "But I am not clear that you are not both mistaken."

"You have lived among Yankees, till it has hurt you," said
Ransom.

"Till I have learned to know something about them," I said.

"And is your judgment of the probable issue of the war, different from that I have expressed, Miss Randolph?" Mr. De Saussure asked.

"My judgment is not worth much," I said. "I have doubts."

"But you agree with us as to the right of preserving our independence?" Mr. Marshall said.

"Does independence mean, the governing power? Does every minority, as such, lose its independence?"

"Yes!" said De Saussure - "if it is to be permanently a minority."

"That would be our case, you see," Mr. Marshall went on. "Are we not justified in endeavouring to escape from such a position?"

I was most unwilling to talk on the subject, but they were all determined I should. I could not escape.

"It depends," I said, "the settlement of that question, upon the other question, whether our government is one or twenty."

"It is thirty!" said Ransom.

I had thrown a ball now which they could keep up without me. To my joy, the whole three became so much engaged in the game, that I was forgotten. I could afford to forget too; and quitting the fair lake and the glorious mountain that looked down upon it, ceasing to hear the eager debate which went on at my side, my thoughts flew over the water to a uniform and a sword that were somewhere in that struggle of rights and wrongs. My heart sank. So far off, and I could not reach him; so busy against the feelings and prejudices of my friends, and I could not reconcile them; in danger, and I could not be near; in trouble, perhaps, and I could not help. It would not do to think about. I brought my thoughts back, and wondered at old Mont Pilatte which looked so steadily down on me with the calm of the ages.

CHAPTER X. WAITING

For weeks after this sail on the lake my life was like a fête day. Expeditions of all sorts were planned and carried out for my pleasure. One day we were exploring the lake shores in a boat; the next, we went back into the country, as far as we could go and return before evening; a third day we climbed the mountains somewhere and got glorious new views of what the world is. Nothing could hinder, in those days, but that my draught of pleasure was very full. Whatever weight might lie at my heart, when I found myself high, high up above the ordinary region of life, resting on a mountain summit from which I looked down upon all that surrounded me other days; a little of that same lifting up befel the thoughts of my heart and the views that have to do with the spirit's life. I stood above the region of mists for a little. I saw how the inequalities of the lower level, which perplex us there, sink into nothing when looked upon from a higher standpoint. I saw that rough roads led to quiet valleys; and that the blessed sunlight was always lying on the earth, though down in one of those depths one might lose sight of it for a time. I do not know how it is, but getting up into a high mountain has a little the effect of getting out of the world. One has left perplexities and uncertainties behind; the calm and the strength of the everlasting hills is about one; the air is not defiled with contentions or rivalries or jealousies up there; and the glory of creation reminds one of other glory, and power, and wisdom and might; and one breathes hope and rest. So I used to do. Of all our excursions, I liked best to go up the mountains. No matter how high, or by how difficult a road.

Mamma and papa were only now and then of the party. That I was very sorry for, but it could not be helped. Mamma had seen it all, she said; and when I urged that she had not been to this particular "horn," she said that one "horn" was just like another, and that when you had seen one or two you had seen them all. But I never found it so. Every new time was a new revelation of glory to me. If I could have had papa with me, my satisfaction would have been perfect; but papa shunned fatigue, and never went where he could not go easily. I was obliged to be content with my brother and my brother's friends; and after I had made up my mind to that, the whole way was a rejoicing to me, from the time I left the house till we returned, a weary and hungry party, to claim mamma's welcome again. Our party was always the same four. Mr. de Saussure and Hugh Marshall were, I found, very intimately at home with my father and mother, and naturally they were soon on the same footing with me. As far as care went, I had three brothers to look after me, of whom indeed Ransom was not the most careful; and as to social qualifications, they were extremely well-bred, well-educated, and had a great deal of general and particular cultivation. In the evenings we had music and conversation; which last was always very pleasant except when it turned upon American affairs. Then I had great twinges of heart, which I thought it wise to keep to myself as closely as possible.

I remember well the twinge I had, when one evening early in September De Saussure came in, the utmost glee expressed in his eyes and manner, and announced his news thus; -

"They have had a battle at Springfield, and Lyon is killed."

"Who is Lyon?" I could not help asking, though it was incautious.

"You should not ask," he said more gently as he sat down by me; "you have no relish for these things. Even the cause of liberty cannot sweeten them to you."

"Who is Lyon, De Saussure?" my father repeated.

"A Connecticut fellow." The tone of these words, in its utter disdain, was inexpressible.

"Connecticut?" said my father. "Has the war got into New
England? That cannot be."

"No, sir, no, sir," said Ransom. "It is Springfield in
Missouri. You find a Yankee wherever you go in this world."

"Wilson's Creek is the place of the battle," Mr. De Saussure went on. "Near Springfield, in Missouri. It was an overwhelming defeat. Lyon killed, and the next in command obliged to beat off."

"Who on our side?" asked my mother.

"Ben McCulloch and Price."

"How many engaged? Was it much of an affair?"

"We had twenty thousand or so. Of course, the others had more."

"It doesn't take but one or two Southerners to whip a score of those cowards," said Ransom.

"Why should not the war have got into New England, Mr. Randolph?" my mother asked. "You said, 'That cannot be.' Why should it not be?"

"There are a few thousand men in the way," said my father; "and I think they are not all cowards."

"They will never stand before our rifles," said De Saussure.

"Our boys will mow them down like grass," said Ransom. "And in New Orleans the fever will take care of them. How soon, mother, will the fever be there?"

Mamma and Ransom compared notes upon the probable and usual time for the yellow fever to make its appearance, when it would wield, its scythe of destruction upon the fresh harvest of life made ready for it, in the bands of the Northern soldiers in Louisiana. My whole soul was in a stir of opposition to the speakers. I had to be still, but pain struggled to speak.

"You do not enjoy the prospect -" Hugh Marshall said, softly.

I only looked at him.

"Nor do I," said he, shaking his head. "A fair fight is one thing. - It is a terrible state of affairs at home, Miss Randolph."

I had the utmost difficulty to keep quiet and give no sign. I could have answered him with a cry which would have startled them all. What if Thorold were ordered down there? He might be. He would go where he was ordered. That thought brought help; for so would I! A soldier, in another warfare, I remembered my ways were appointed, even as his; only more wisely, more surely, and on no service that could by any means be in vain. But yet the pain was very sharp, as I looked at the group who were eagerly discussing war matters; my father, my mother, my brother, and De Saussure, who in the interest of the thing had left my side; how keen they were! So were others keen at home, who had swords in their hands and pistols in their belts. It would not do to think. I could but repeat to myself, - "I am a soldier - I am a soldier - and just now my duty is to stand and bear fire."

There was little chance in those days at Lucerne for me to be alone with papa. The opportunities we had we both enjoyed highly. Now and then mamma would be late for breakfast, or even take hers in bed; once in a while go out to a visit from which I begged off. Then papa and I drew together and had a good time. One of these chances occurred a few days after the news came of General Lyon's death. We were alone, and I was drawing, and papa had been watching me a little while in silence.

"Daisy," he began, "am I wrong? It seems to me that you do not look upon matters at home with just the eye that the rest of us have for them?"

"What matters, papa?" I said, looking up, and feeling troubled.

"You do not like the war."

"Papa, - do you?"

"Yes. I think our countrymen are right, and of course I wish that they should have their rights."

"Papa," said I, "don't you think it must be very strong reasons that can justify so dreadful a thing as a war?"

"Undoubtedly; but the preservation of liberty is one of the strongest that can be conceived."

"Papa - you know I want liberty for the blacks."

"It is like you, my dear child," my father said, after pausing a minute; "it is like your generous nature; but Daisy, I think those people do not want it for themselves."

"Papa, if they did not, I should think it would be one of the strongest arguments on my side; but I am sure they do. I know a great many of them that do."

"Did not you, perhaps, bring about that desire in them, by your kind and possibly somewhat misjudged indulgences?"

"No indeed, papa; it was our overseer, with his wicked ways.
That Mr. Edwards is dreadful, papa!"

"All overseers are not good," said my father with a sigh. "The people at Magnolia are as well treated, on the whole, - as they can be anywhere, I think, - I hope."

"You do not know, papa. If they are, you have said all. And there is our old Maria, who has nothing to do with Mr. Edwards; she has no hope nor anticipation which does not go beyond this world; and it is so with a great many of them. They have that hope; but they sing, "I am bound for the promised land!" - in a minor key; and to a plaintive air that makes your heart ache."

"Yours, Daisy," said my father with a somewhat constrained smile.

"Papa," I went on, trembling, but I thought it best to venture, - "if the issue of this war could be to set all those people free, I could almost be glad."

"That will not be the issue, Daisy," he said.

"Papa, what do you think will?"

"It can have but one issue. The Southern people cannot be put down."

"Then, if they succeed, what will be the state of things between them and the North?"

"It is impossible to tell how far things will go, Daisy, now that they have actually taken up arms. But I do not think the Southern people want anything of the North, but to be let alone."

"How would it be, if the North succeeded, papa?"

"It cannot succeed, Daisy. You have heard a different language, I suppose; but I know the men, - and the women, - of the South. They will never yield. The North must, sooner or later."

I could not carry this on, and turned the conversation. But I had to listen to a great deal of the same sort of thing, in which I took no part. It came up every day. I discovered that my mother was using her influence and all her art to induce our two young friends to return home and enter the Southern army. She desired with equal vehemence that Ransom should take the same course; and as they all professed to be strong in the interests and sympathies that moved her, I was a little puzzled to understand why they delayed so long. For they did delay. They talked, but nothing came of it. Still we went on fresh excursions and made new expeditions; spending days of delight on the mountain sides, and days of enchantment in the mountain valleys; and still our party was of the same four. It is true that papa did not at all share mamma's eagerness to have Ransom go; but Ransom did not greatly care for papa's likings; and in the case of the others, I did not see what held them.

The printed news from home we had of course, regularly; and as far as I could without being watched, I studied them. The papers after all were mostly Southern, and so filled with outrageous invective and inflated boasting, that I could not judge anything very certainly, from what they said. Nothing of great importance seemed to be transpiring between the belligerent parties. I supposed that it wanted but some such occurrence or occasion to send off our three young men like a ball from a rifle, straight to the seat of war. Meanwhile we enjoyed ourselves. Others did, and I did also, whenever I could put down fear and lift up hope; and I was young, and that happened to me sometimes. So the weeks ran on.

"I really don't see why I should be in a hurry to plunge myself into that angry confusion of things at home," Hugh Marshall said one day. "It seems to me, they can get through it without my help."

"Well, you are not in a hurry." I answered.

We were out as usual for a day's pleasure among the mountains, and Hugh and I were resting on a sunny bank waiting for the others to come up. We had distanced them.

"What do you think about it?" he said, suddenly drawing himself up from the grass and looking in my face.

"Men do not rule their course by what women think," - I answered.

"No, you are wrong; they do! Sometimes they do," - he said. "I have no mother nor sister to counsel me; only Mrs. Randolph bids me go home and be a soldier; but I would as lieve take advice from you. What would you tell me to do - if I were your brother?"

"I do not tell Ransom anything."

"He is under his mother's tutelage; but I am not. Tell me what to do, Miss Randolph. I am sure your counsel would be good. Do you wish me to go and fight the North, as your mother says I ought?"

"I wish people would not fight at all," I said, with my heart straitened.

"Of course; but here we are in it, or they are; and it is the same thing. Don't you think they can get through it without me? or do you say as your mother, - 'Every one go!' "

He looked at me more earnestly than was pleasant, and I was greatly at a loss what to answer. It was wisest for me not to commit myself to a course opposed to my mother's; and yet, truth is wisest of all. I looked to see Ransom and Mr. De Saussure, but they were not in sight.

"You are not speaking in jest," I said; "and I have no business to speak in earnest."

"You never speak any other way," he rejoined. "Tell me your mind. You are never violent; do you feel as Mrs. Randolph does about it? Would you like me better if I went heart and soul into the fray at home?"

"That would depend upon the-views and motives with which you went into it."

"Well - if I did it for love of you?" he said smiling.

"I cannot imagine that anybody should do such a thing for love of me. Nothing but the strongest and purest convictions of duty can justify such a thing as fighting."

"I suppose I know what that means," he said somewhat gloomily.

"No," said I hastily, "I don't think you do."

"What does it mean, then?" he asked.

"Permit me to ask first, Are your convictions strong and clear, that it is your duty to go home and enter the war for the South?"

"That's a searching question," he said laughing. "To say yes, would be to condemn myself at once. To say no, - what would that do for me with Mrs. Randolph?"

"You are not speaking to Mrs. Randolph," I said, half under my breath.

He looked up eagerly in my face. "You do not think as she does!" he said. "You do not believe in fighting, under any circumstances?"

"Yes, I do, Mr. Marshall," I said; and I felt myself colour. "I do believe in fighting, when it is to relieve the oppressed, to deliver those who are trampled upon, or to save ourselves or others from worse than death."

"Our friends at the South can hardly be said to be in such extremity," he said, looking rather perplexed; "unless you believe all that the papers say about Yankee invaders; and I for one am not ready to do that."

"Nor I," I said; "I know them too well."

"Then who is so bitterly oppressed just now, Miss Randolph?"

"If you do not know of anybody, I would not fight, Mr.
Marshall."

"Really?" said he. "Perhaps I ought to go home and take care of my twelve hundred people at Vincennes. Is that your thought?"

"Are they in need of care?" I asked.

" 'Pon my word, I don't know. Perhaps it would be nearer right to say, take care of myself; for if the war should come the way of Vicksburg, and Yankee arms have a little success, there might be the mischief to pay at Vincennes. On reflection, I don't see how I could take care of myself, either. Then you do not bid me go?" he asked again.

"You remember our words one day about insignificant lives?"

"Yes!" he cried eagerly; "and I have been longing ever since to ask you to explain more fully what interested me so much. I never could get a chance. I assure you, I have felt to the bottom of my heart what it is to have one's existence really worth nothing, to anybody. How may it be better? My life has to do with nothing but insignificant things."

"But you must define insignificance," I said.

"Is it needful?"

"I think so. What makes things insignificant? Not their being small, - or common?"

"What then, Miss Randolph?"

"Small things, and common things, are often to the last degree important, you know, Mr. Marshall."

"Yes; but however small and common, I cannot feel that I am important, in any degree," he said, half laughing.

"We were talking of lives, and things."

"Yes. Excuse me. Well?"

"I think I see the crowns of two hats, down below, which belong to some people that we know."

"Is it they?" he exclaimed; - "and I wish they were farther off. Finish what you were going to say, Miss Daisy! Do not leave me in ignorance now, after bringing me so far."

"I can only tell you what I think," I said.

"And that is precisely what I want to hear," he answered earnestly.

"You will not agree to it, though, and I do not know that you will even understand me. Mr. Marshall, I think that nothing is insignificant which is done for God; and that everything which is not done for Him, directly or indirectly, is insignificant or worse."

"I do not understand -" he said thoughtfully. "In what sense can a thing be 'done for God?' Unless it is building a church or founding a hospital."

"Very few churches have been built for God," I said. "At least I think so."

"Why, the old monks -" Mr. Marshall began. But just then our missing companions came up, and he stopped. They had been lured aside from the way by the sight of some game. We had no more private talk; but Hugh Marshall was sober and thoughtful all the rest of the day.

He sought such talks with me now whenever he could; and seemed to enter into them like a man, with an earnest purpose to know the truth and to do his work in the world if he could find it. I grew, in a way, very fond of him. He was gentle, well-bred, happy-tempered, extremely careful of my welfare and pleasure, and regardful of my opinions, which I suppose flattered my vanity; well-read and sensible; and it seemed to me that he grew more agreeable every day.

The accounts from the seat of war in America were not very stirring just then; nothing great was done or expected; and the question of our young men's return to take part in what was going on, was suffered for a time to fall out of sight. Meanwhile we left Lucerne and went to Geneva. There was more society, in a quiet way; and there was a fresh harvest of pleasure to be reaped by me and for me in the domains of nature.