In War Time

XI.

MRS. WESTERLEY had less difficulty with Ann Wendell than she had expected. She set forth, quietly and distinctly, the need for an orphan, a dependent orphan, to have some such education as would fit her to sustain herself when the time came. Then she sympathized with Ann as to the religious aspect of the case, and at last won her somewhat reluctant consent to Mrs. Morton’s plan of sending Hester to school. Hester was to go to Miss Pearson’s, and she, Mrs. Westerley, would write at once to that lady ; and here was a check, which Colonel Morten wished to be used for the child’s clothes. Ann took it, but did not like to do so. Somehow, it seemed to her like a charity to her brother and herself, and she had the admirable dislike of the hardy New England mind to being assisted by money. Moreover,— and this Alice Westerley of course failed to comprehend, —Ann had a decided indisposition to receive for Hester any favors from Colonel Morton. In fact, she kept saying to herself, “ How will this child feel if she ever comes to know that, however innocently, the man to whom she owes so much was at least suspected of having killed her father? I ought to think for her now.’’ But her brother had laughed at Ann about this, and it was a matter already ignored or forgotten by everybody but herself; besides, Ezra, who was indifferent as to money, had already told her that the Mortons expected to assist them, and so what could she do but accept for Hester this further kindness ? Nevertheless, Ann did not use the check until more than once reminded of it by Wendell.

Mrs. Morton felt easier after this settlement of Hester’s affairs, and in a couple of weeks sailed for Liverpool with her husband and Arthur, while Edward came to stay at the doctor’s, where a room had been made comfortable for him by his mother’s lavish care ; and so a new chapter in life began for those concerned in this tale.

“ I shall be at home again in six months,” Arthur said. “ Hester, you will write to me. If you don’t, I shall come back in three months.”

“ Then perhaps I won’t write, Arty,” replied the young lady.

“ She won’t have time to write to all of us.” said Edward, smiling ; “ and I promise you that I mean to have my share.”

Arthur looked up, and remarked, testily, “ She must write to me, anyhow. You are so near her, it can’t make any matter.”

“ Halloa, old fellow,” returned Edward, “ I was jesting ! What makes you so savage ? We don’t say ‘ must ’ to young ladies.”

“ I was n’t savage,” said Arthur. “ Were n’t you ? Well, I beg pardon. We can’t have a row now.”

“ No, brother.”

“ And I will write a little to both,” promised Hester,—“if I may, you know.”

Then Edward said good-by, and Arthur followed Hester alone to the door. “ Good-by,” he said. “ Don’t forget me,” and he kissed the hand he yet detained in his own. The girl reddened. She was a little startled by his passionate manner.

“ I won’t forget you, Arty ; ” and she went away with a strong feeling of sorrow at parting, and with an odd and novel sense of a secret between Arty and herself, — some half-felt idea that he had been pleasant to her, and that he had kissed her hand like a knight, and that it was n’t a thing she would tell.

The short time which elapsed between the sailing of the Mortons and Hester’s departure for school was very delightful to Edward. He moved about with difficulty, but nevertheless it was a new pleasure to drive Hester across the park, or up through the lanes to Chestnut Hill. It was also something to escape from the trying atmosphere of home, and, though he did not realize it in thought, from his mother’s too remindful care and his father’s constant discontent with life. He found the Wendells very pleasant. Men who are abruptly shut off from active life turn instinctively for aid to women, and in Miss Wendell Edward discovered a kind of helpfulness different from that which Mrs. Westerley gave, and yet as valuable. Ann liked the manly, enduring young fellow, with his broad, gaunt form and the soft voice which was always coming at right moments to soothe or sustain, or decoy her into a smile. The broken life of this young athlete moved her strangely, perhaps because she was, and felt herself in a woman’s sense, competent for anything in the work of life, and was now awed to see in a man a like competence suddenly destroyed. Yet it is doubtful if she would have felt thus for a young woman. Certainly, not so deeply; and indeed, as a rule, she somewhat despised sick women.

She found errands for Edward to do, and knew with feminine clearness when he wanted a wood fire and loneliness. She soon said, “I just do like to have that boy around.” A servant came daily, and did what Edward desired; but Ann had declined to have another man to stay in the house. “ Three ? ” she declared. “ I could n’t stand that ! ”

Wendell, too, the young man found pleasant. The deficiencies of the doctor’s nature were seen but by few, and rarely in the visible life of society or of his profession. If certain people did not quite like him, they had often to confess that they hardly knew why, and he was commonly described as a bright and intelligent companion, and wonderfully learned in many ways. This was all true. Some people make admirable, indeed delightful acquaintances, and are gifted with the camaraderie of the minute, but have no capacity for friendship. And there are good friends who make poor acquaintances. As to Wendell, he liked many people easily, but not deeply, and at present was entertained with the young man, who promised to relieve what he sometimes felt was a growing narrowness in his life with Ann. He craved sympathy in his pursuits, and desired, as some men do, that they should interest every one. Ann had discovered this, but perhaps her interest was a little formal in its outward expression ; at all events, Edward seemed to be a much more promising auditor, and a fresh one.

Out of it all came a wholesomer existence for Edward Morton. His young life at school, where he learned nothing and would learn nothing, was broken, when he was fifteen, by his father, who in a rage sent him to expend his wild energies on a cattle ranche in Texas, with Mrs. Morton’s brother. There he rode and hunted, and was shot at by Indians, until some time after the death of the uncle, whose heir he became, when the outbreak of treason in Texas sent him home in haste. His escape had been perilous, and in the long exposures which accompanied it he probably acquired the malady which had left him but a sad on-looker in a world where nature had meant him to play a prominent part. But now he was left without resources. To shoot, to ride, to fish, to swim, were not for him.

“ Why, doctor, I can’t even stand long enough to play out a game of billiards. I think I see myself reduced to whist, or to the condition in which my father used to be when he got shaved twice a day, because he had nothing else as interesting to do.”

“You might make me some jackstraws, Mr. Edward,” observed Hester, who was coiled up on a cushion at his feet, while Wendell gazed into his microscope, or looked through a book for some figure to match the awful beasts who wandered about under his lens, and Ann sat busily knitting, near by.

Ann looked up. “ That’s a good idea, child. When my father had been very ill, and was getting well, he used to whittle. It was wonderful how quiet it kept him. He used to whittle almost all day.”

“Were you ever at Bangor?” inquired Wendell. “ Down East we call it Bangore ; why, I don’t know. What my sister says made me think of it. It is all chips and sawmills, and the rivers are thick with shavings and choked with sawdust. I think whittling must have been invented there.”

“We will go there next summer, Hester, all of us, and see it,” returned Edward.

“ But you can learn to whittle now,” persisted Hester. “ I know how. I can show you. Have you a sharp knife ? ” “ What a child ! ” exclaimed Edward, delighted. “A knife? Six of them.”

“ And you will want some soft, dry white pine,” said Ann. “ I will see about it to-morrow.”

“ Thank you. You are very good to me; and really, it is a first-rate notion for a small monkey.”

“ I am not very small, and I am not a monkey, Mr. Edward,” rejoined the young lady.

“ Well, a nice monkey.”

“ No, not even a nice monkey ! I am just Miss Hester Gray.”

“ And not Hester ? ”

“ Yes, when you are nice, I am Hester ; and when you are not, I am Miss Gray. That’s my real name,” she added, nodding her head.

Edward was amused at the half earnestness of the growing girl.

“ But,” said Ann, “ you should n’t speak just in that way to older people.”

Had Hester been her own child, the reproof would have been more decisive.

“ I did n’t mean anything, Miss Ann.”

“ Then you should not speak unless you do mean something.”

“ It ’s our way,” interrupted Edward. “ We have it out, now and then ; but this engagement was very mild. When we do clear the decks for action, you may take care ! ”

“ I shall leave then,” said Ann, smiling.

“ And I,” added Wendell. “ But just come here, Edward. Don’t shake the table ! There, move this screw. It is the fine adjustment.”

Edward looked and wondered. Here was a wild world of strange creatures ; possibly, as to numbers, a goodly town full of marvelous beasts, attacking, defending, eating, or being eaten: some, mere tiny dots, oscillating to and fro; some, vibratile rods ; and among them, an amazing menagerie of larger creatures, whirled hither and thither by active cilia too swift in their motions to be seen.

“ Let me sit down and look at them, doctor. What a sight ! It makes my head swim. Have you seen them, Hester ? ”

“ Oh, yes,” Hester answered ; “ I am quite fond of some of them. Do show him the rhizopod with the pebble house shaped like Mrs. Morton’s Greek vase, uncle.”

“ Hester, I told you yesterday that you must not call Dr. Wendell ‘ uncle,’ ” Ann broke in. “It is not truthful; that is why I don’t like it.”

“ But I do,” said Wendell, laughing,

“ and I can’t have her calling me ’ doctor.’ I think, Ann, you are quite too particular.”

“ Have your way. It is n’t any very great matter.”

“ No, it is n’t any very great matter,” returned Wendell.

“ And if there are titles around loose,” said Edward, “ I mean to be grandpapa. It is a very privileged position.”

“ I wish to choose grandpapas for myself, Mr. Edward.”

“ Edward, please.”

“ No, — ’ Mr.’ Edward.”

“ Well, it is like a Greek vase,” cried Morton, again looking down into the microscope ; “ and how beautiful it is ! ”

“It was found between two wet bricks in a sidewalk, by a great naturalist,” remarked Wendell.

Edward still peered musingly through the glass. “There seem,” he thought,

“ to be a great many things I have never seen or heard of.” Then he asked,

“ What do you call this fellow ? ”

“ It is a fresh-water sponge.”

“ Goodness ! ” returned Edward, “ are sponges alive ? Do I mop myself with a beast ? ”

“ I don’t care about their names,” said Hester, laughing, — “ they won’t come when they are called ; but I like to know their looks, and see which must be cousins and which must be brothers and sisters.”

“Yes,” replied Morton, “ I should fancy that might be good fun.”

“ And then,” cried Hester, “it’s very nice to get a lot of stuff from the ponds near Fisher’s Mills, — just all along the edges, you know, — and to come home and see with the microscope what you have got.”

“ Hum,” returned Edward, “ it might have the charm of gambling without the cost. That’s what makes all gambling so amusing. It’s a kind of gambling. And how many things, Miss Gray, are there in life that interest you? ”

“Mr. Morton,” she said, making him a coquettish courtesy, “ I could n’t tell you in an hour.”

“ Then don’t begin,” laughed Edward.

“ The child does like a good many things,” observed Wendell. " But our menagerie is small, now ; only a remnant of our beasts are left in these saucers. When June comes we will go a-huntiug.”

“It seems a droll idea to get a great bag of this small game,” said Edward, “ and not know what you have till you get home ! Comical ; kind of lottery, is n’t it ? ”

“ Rather ; but you get to like it.”

“ Hester,” said Ann, glancing at the clock, “bedtime, — bedtime, and past. ‘ Early to bed and early to rise ’ — and you know the rest.”

“ But, Miss Ann, would n’t I go to bed a little wiser if I might wait till you read ? I know you will read when I am gone.”

“ I was thinking of that myself,” said Wendell; for he had now got his young patient into the habit of reading aloud with him, and was wise enough to lure him on with such prose or verse as he thought would be the most pleasant bait. Some echo of the wild life he had left, or some ringing lyric which recalled the strife into which he would have wished to plunge, was delightful to Edward, The little lady, too, was herself cunning in her choice.

“ Just a half hour, Miss Ann,” pleaded Edward ; “ and then I will go to bed, too. See how good I am ! ”

“ You all spoil her,” said Ann ; but the permission had already been taken for granted.

“ I like this,” said Hester, decisively, putting an open book in Edward’s hand.

“ Why, it’s that idiot Wordsworth ! ”

“ Well, but read,” said Hester.

“Oh,” exclaimed he, “what’s this, then ? ‘ Bear me to the heart of France is the longing of the shield.’ Halloa, Hester, that is poetry! I ‘11 try it; ” and with a voice of many tones he read aloud that great lyric to the tender lines at its close, when, as after a flare of warlike bugles, the large silence is filled with a song of peace, of the sweetness of tender giving, and of kindness treasured in remembrance in peasant homes through centuries after. “ By George ! ” he cried, “ that’s great verse ! No more to-night. To bed, Miss Gray, to bed ! Please to carry my candle up. ‘ Quell the Scot, exclaims the lance.’ I must learn it! I shall read it better next time.”

“ Did you really never see it before ? ” asked Wendell.

“ See it! ” repeated Morton. “ How should a Texas cowboy have seen anything? This leaving me, Hester, just as my education begins is rather rough, I think. But women are all heartless. Good-night. Ah, that ‘longing of the shield ! ’ I think I understand.”

This sort of intellectual contact was unknown to Edward Morton’s previous existence. Even had he been at home he would have seen none of it. The Mortons read books, and were reasonably up to the day, and could smile at Mr. Wilmington’s mislaid Addisonian quotations; but the true book life they knew not. Books were in, but not of, their lives, whereas Wendell was an absorber of books, and honestly loved the old literature, while Hester was quickly showing, in this genial air, that curious, keen zest for all printed matter which her friend Arthur also had, and which sets a boy or a girl to browsing along book-shelves, as deep to-day in an almanac as to-morrow in Grote or Gibbon. Even Ann, who read least, had her literary likings and fought for them, and they talked about books with unaffected interest, fictitious characters affording them such cheerful gossip as Morton heard elsewhere about servants and children.

Little by little, as has chanced before to many an invalid, there opened thus to the stranded man a new and strange world. In health he could never have known it. Now, by degrees, its men and women were forced upon his acquaintance, and, like some obligatory acquaintanceships, grew pleasant as he became accustomed to them. But it seemed very odd to him to be, as he felt it, leaving one world and pleasantly entering another. As time moved on, however, he learned how wholesome for his troubled being were these novel interests, to which, after Hester left, he began to turn still more eagerly. It was clear to Alice Westerley that new and grateful occupations were finding a place in the young man’s life, and to talk of them began to make a part of the frequent chats with the widow, which were a portion of the limited happiness of his present very quiet days.

And so the winter sped away, and there were genial letters from Arthur, who was in France, and busy endeavoring to determine the whereabouts of the field of Roncesvalles. The colonel was mending, as Dr. Lagrange had predicted; but despite this Mrs. Morton’s letters were not very happy. At that time Confederate heroes were rather the rage in Europe among the mongrel English who lived on the Continent, but nevertheless the colonel was a social success. He always had been and always would be, and as a rich American was agreeably received everywhere, especially by the Italian princes and French counts, for whom there were and are but two classes of Americans, — the poor and the rich. Besides, Morton was calmly indifferent, and neither wanted nor sought any one; and this, to the better class of English, is always more or less a social shibboleth. The colonel was thus in a measure courted, and on the whole liked the idle life about him.

His wife did not. She was a very considerable personage at home, and abroad she was “ that large woman,” “ very nice, you know,” “ the wife of that distinguished-looking American.” Nor was Arthur any better pleased. Being tall and sturdy, he had been asked by a Frenchman how it came that he was in Europe, when it was said that in his country even the boys were in the army; but that, perhaps, was in the South, where there was a sort of noblesse, and “ that oblige, you know,” at which Arthur was furious. Somewhat later, as the colonel got better, and the spring opened, they had tried England, where they had many acquaintances, the product of several visits abroad ; but here even the colonel, with his easy indifference to political opinions, was uncomfortable, amidst the constant and outspoken hostility of the upper class to his country, while Arthur was in one long agony of ill-concealed wrath. At last, in early May, Mrs. Morton confided to Alice Westerley that England was unendurable.

“ My dear Alice,” she wrote, “ to-morrow we leave for the north of Italy, and glad enough I am to go. You cannot conceive what it is to be in England at present. I do not see how Mr. Adams stands it at all. But I suppose his position protects him somewhat. To us, I can assure you, these people are anything but diplomatic. And as to Arthur, I shall be glad this month to let him go home. Yesterday he had what he calls a ‘ row ’ with some young Englishmen, and having used certain very strong language is in a rage to-day because they declined, one and all of them, to be shot in France, — all of which especially pleases his father, who says that the boy behaved very well.

“ So to-morrow, to my great relief, as I said, we leave this land of fogs and plain speaking. Lady Jane asked for you yesterday, and Mr. Melville and the Veres have been very civil. I will get you your gloves in Paris ; and do not forget that Hester Gray will need summer dresses.

“ I understand that Edward has taken to books and a microscope! Really, if you had told me that you were editing a dictionary, I could not have been more amazed. However, it is, I dare say, a good thing. Poor fellow ! My heart yearns for that boy, Alice ! I think of him day and night. And how goes our Sanitary Commission work ? I inclose a draft for it. Use it as you think best.” And then followed endless requests as to the care of old servants, and what not.

“ Helen Morton must be famishing for something to do,” said Alice Westcrley, as she came to quite a voluminous postscript.

“ I reopen this letter to tell you of a curious thing which happened yesterday. Colonel Morton came in late last evening with a gentleman, who, it seems, has called here before, although the people at the Burlington somehow managed to mislay his card. Morton met him at the Reform Club, where he chanced to hear my husband’s name mentioned. He is a cousin of our little Hester, and is called Henry Gray,— the relative she told us of. Although a Carolinian, he has lived in Texas, and he says that he knew my brother Edward very well. I should think he must make a sensation in English social life, for a more singular person I, at least, have never met. He is a perfectly rabid rebel: but you know Morton rather prides himself on a calm show of indifference about such matters, — and really, I suppose, as the child is concerned, he is right enough to pass over a good deal. But as to Arty, he left the room in five minutes, as red as a peony.

“ What this gentleman said was that he had not heard a word directly about Hester ; which is curious, as our letters — and I wrote three — were sent to his agent in Charleston. Still, nothing is sure in war-time. He had, however, learned that Captain Gray had died at the hospital, and he had written from here to the surgeon in charge, and had got an answer, — pretty accurate, you may be sure, — from Dr. Lagrange! And now by good luck he lit on Morton. I hear that he has made no end of money in running the blockade, and that he is in some way a financial agent of the rebels. ‘ A pretty acquaintance ! ’ says Master Arthur, who absolutely declined to dine with him to-day.”

(“ I should think so,” commented Mrs. Westerley. “ The idea of it! ”)

“ The man, I ought to say, has very good manners, wears a broad felt hat, and has long hair, and the smallest, thinnest boots you ever saw. When our servant helped him to take his coat off, a revolver fell out of his pocket, and nearly scared poor Price out of his life. The colonel, who was in the entry, remarked that it was n’t much needed in London ; upon which Mr, Gray said calmly that he did n’t know about that, and that ’ it made a man feel easy like.’ Can you conceive of it, my dear! And these are the people our English friends look upon as aristocrats, great land-owners, and so on! Don’t you wish they could see some of the ‘ gentlemen’s seats’ in the South? But I must not talk about this any more.

“It is simply impossible to credit the state of feeling here. John thinks we shall certainly have a war with England.

“ However, I am delaying to tell you about what is personally very important. Mr. Henry Gray has now seen us several times. lie is so well satisfied, owing to what we have said about the Wendells, that he intends to place ten thousand dollars in Dr. Wendell’s hands, the income of which is to be used for Hester’s education. He very wisely says that it will be better, in these times, to do this than to trust to his being able to send the interest in installments. I wanted to have the money put as a trust in Morton’s hands, as I have no great opinion of our good friend the doctor’s financial abilities; but to this John said no, and, as usual, that he had hail bother enough about the matter, and that I was too suspicious, — which was dreadful, Alice, because there is no one in whom I have more confidence than the doctor. So of course I said no more, and the money goes at once to Dr. Wendell. And don’t you think you might give him a hint as to getting Mr. Wilmington’s advice in regard to an investment? Then you might ask Mr. Wilmington just to mention government bonds as desirable. Now is n’t it all really very nice and generous? ”

Then there was more about the Sanitary Commission, and exact directions as to how the draft in aid of it was to be spent; over which Alice Westerley smiled, recalling the phrase which left her free to use it as seemed best.

Last of all was a slip dated Paris, June 20th ; —

“ Oh, Alice, why am I not in that loathsome England to-day of all days! The Kearsarge has taken the Alabama, and I am wild with joy ! Arty said such a clever thing about it this morning to old La Roque, the famous abbé who turns the heads and the religion of the English girls. He is an insane Southern sympathizer ; and when he said to Arty, ’ What drolls of names for the ships ! ’ (he thinks he speaks English) my young gentleman says, ‘Yes: one is a Yankee mountain, and the other is a slave State. How could there be any doubt about the result ? ’ which pleased John immensely. This fight has made the lad crazy; he sails in three days; and the colonel has written to the governor. So I am to have once more, dear Alice, the terror of a personal stake in the war. I feel as if I were tied to it already, — there, that is worthy of you. Ask Arty about his last interview with Mr. Gray. Don’t forget.”

The same mail which carried this communication brought also to Wendell a brief letter from Mr. Gray, inclosing the promised draft and an explanatory note from Colonel Morton. The former gentleman desired to be recalled to his young cousin’s memory, and hoped, when the war was over and the Confederacy firmly established, to take her home with him to Texas ; and beside this there was little except a warmly expressed desire that she would always remember that she was a Carolinian.

Wendell was pleased, amused, and a little disturbed in mind. He said to his sister, —

“ I think it will be best not to show her this letter at all. What does she care for the South? They have been long enough in finding out about her, I am sure.” But he did not say that Mrs. Morton’s last letter, which he had promised to confide to a friend who was on the staff of General Meade, and through whom Mrs. Morton desired to secure its transit across the lines, was lying in his table drawer. In fact, he had meant to send it; then he had forgotten it; and when it was brought anew to his attention, he had come to feel that this girl, who was now so interesting a part of his life, was in a measure his own. A deepening sense of unwillingness to be the instrument of separating her from her new life overcame for a time his resolves, which, at least where his own indulgence was concerned, were apt to be weak, and thus he had again delayed to act, until, finally, it was too late.

“ I think I would let her see her cousin’s letter,” returned Ann, who was always just. “ Don’t you think it would be wrong not to do so ? Try to put yourself in his place, Ezra.”

“ I will think about it,” he answered.

Ann knew very well what that meant. Why think about it at all ? It was clear enough.

“ I would give it to her at once, Ezra. I believe myself you are rather sorry to have anybody claim her. She is certainly a very nice child, but I can’t see why you and Edward Morton make such a fuss over her.”

“ Can’t you, Ann ? ”

“ No, I cannot; and now that she is taken charge of by her cousin, I, for one, shall feel it a great relief from a responsibility and an expense too.”

“ But she is n’t taken out of our charge as yet ; and as to the expense she has occasioned, I don’t mind that in the least.”

“ But you should, Ezra. And I do wish you were more thoughtful about expenses ! Even with your increase of practice we are always in debt. Now that new microscope: don’t you think ” —

“ Yes, I know ; but unless I had had it I should have been unable to go on with my work in that question of pyæmia; and you know what Lagrange said about that yesterday. It is really important.” And indeed it must be added that he honestly thought so.

Ann sighed. “ But you will try ? ” she said.

Yes, he would try. So he kissed her ; for on these occasions he had come to regard a kiss as an effectual means of ending objectionable debate.

Nevertheless, Ann Wendell wrote very fully to Hester, and for all she left unsaid the letter from Mr. Gray might as well have gone.

XII.

It was now close to July, in the year 1864, and Mrs. Westerley was full of her summer plans, and in a state of agreeable excitement over the expected arrival of Arthur and the return to Germantown of Hester, whom she was pleased to regard as the heroine of a little romance, and whose social education, she had resolved, should do justice to the promise of her charming face and improving fortunes. She had arranged with Miss Ann — who, as she had said, did not see any reason for so much fuss — that her own maid should go to the school, and escort Hester to Dr. Wendell’s ; and she had also the intention of asking that young person to spend with her a part of the summer vacation. Then, also, Arty was to be with her for two or three days. While she was discussing these matters with her maid, John announced Colonel Fox and Mr. Wilmington. Already she had been up and down stairs several times to see women who called, and she was tired ; but as she never objected to see the men whom she fancied, she rose pleasantly enough, and with a critical, if hasty, glance in her mirror went downstairs, looking at her watch on the way, as she almost momentarily expected Arthur Morton.

“ Good morning, Mr. Wilmington,” she said, “and Colonel Fox! What happy chance brought you here ? ”

“ I am not sure,” replied the soldier, “ that it is a ‘ happy ’ chance, altogether. I got hit in the mine assault; not badly, but it has made my head uncomfortable. I always get hit somewhere! ”

“ Thee’s always getting into trouble,” said Wilmington. “ I heard thee volunteered to lead the advance. Why can’t thee confine theeself to thy legitimate business ? It’s just like speculating.”

The widow laughed merrily, but the old gentleman was in grim earnest, and looked up at her not at all pleased.

“ Oh, but Master Jack,” said Fox, “ that boy of yours, he was in a worse scrape. When the mine failed, he volunteered to crawl in and relight the fuse. He just got out in time, I can tell you ! Do you call that legitimate business ? ”

“ And you never told me, Mr. Wilmington ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Westerley. “ What splendid courage ! ”

“ And do you know, Mrs. Westerley, the boy laughed when the Herald’s reporter asked him his name, next day. He told him it was John Smith ! ”

“ Young idiot! ” muttered the old gentleman ; but his eyes filled. He found himself obliged to wipe his eye-glasses, and he cleared his throat of a sudden choking sensation.

“ I hear that Sheridan offered him a staff appointment,” said Fox, “but Jack preferred the regiment.”

“ I should have taken the least dangerous. These boys, these boys ! ”

“ And do you know that I am to have Arty ?” said the colonel. “ He will be my youngest lieutenant.”

“ Oh, that is well ! ” exclaimed the widow. “ And you will take care of him ? ”

“Of that breed?’’cried Fox. “Not I!”

“ Thee can’t take care of theeself,” remarked Wilmington, “ it appears ! ”

“ What is it, John ? ” said Mrs. Westerley to the servant who now entered.

“ A telegram, ma’am.”

“ Oh, from Arty ! Really, he has stopped to see Hester,” and she read aloud : —

“ ‘ Having a letter from mother to Hester, stopped to deliver it.’ ”

Fox laughed. “I suppose he could n’t trust the mails ?”

“ I think he needs looking after, Mrs. Westerley,” observed Wilmington.

“I think so myself,” she returned. “ Indeed, I intimated as much to his mother. However, he will be here tomorrow.”

“ These Mortons ! ” exclaimed Wilmington. “ A fight or a woman would stop them on the way to heaven ! ”

“ Or to Mrs. Westerley’s,” suggested Fox.

“ Who is a woman, please,” rejoined the widow.

“ A dozen of gloves,” said Wilmington, " that he waits to come home with her, day after to-morrow. Will you bet?”

“ Not I,” replied the hostess. “ I share your opinion of the Morton blood. Luckily, I sent my maid for the child. That excellent and most obdurate spinster, Ann Wendell, wondered why in the world she could n’t come on in charge of the conductor. Imagine it. I never saw an American woman before who was as little plastic. I don’t think she has learned anything since she came here.”

“ As to social wants or usages, you mean,”remarked Fox. “ Commonly the clever American man or maid changes easily enough as to the externals of social life.”

“ Ann Wendell,” returned the widow, “ changes neither within nor without. I should have to despise my poor self, or hate such unpliable people. I suppose she is sorry, or laughs ; but really, if so, it must be all done inside. And her dress is just like her face ; it is never rumpled, come what may ! Now is n’t that kind of person rather exasperating ? ”

“ I presume she must be so to her brother,” said Fox, watchfully regardant ; “ but then I fancy that, like every doctor, he has all the virtues, and is up to the moral level of standing any kind of sister.”

“Now is n’t that a little stupid of you ? " asked Mrs. Westerley. “ But, stupid or not, I never let my friends be abused — except by myself ! ”

“ But did I abuse him ? ”

“ I think you were going to ; but come and dine here to-morrow, and I will forgive you.”

“ I will come. Seven, is n’t it ? ”

“ No, half past six.”

“ Well, I won’t forget. And Miss Hester, — will she be here? Is she as handsome as she promised to be ? ”

“ Come and see.”

Then Mr. Wilmington talked about the Mortons, and a little war gossip with Fox, and at last went away.

“ Dear old fellow,” said Fox, “ how he liked it about that boy ! ”

“ Yes, he liked it well, and you were very nice to talk of it. But tell me, were you much hurt? I heard of it, but I did not suppose that you would have to come home.”

“No, it was n’t altogether the wound that brought me. I came partly to see about tilling up my ranks. We lost awfully in front of Petersburg.”

“ Will you have any difficulty? How do you manage it, — your recruiting, I mean ? ”

The colonel, quite pleased, went on to tell her; and then she questioned him further about his officers and the discipline of his command. It was one of Alice Westerley’s charms that she listened with natural eagerness, and that her intellectual sympathies were real and widespread. Men were taken captive, but did not know why, and wondered, as Fox did, how a woman so trained to the habits of a class could interest, as she did, men like Wendell, with his microscope, and his queer vermin, and his musty old books. In fact, she could listen all day to the doctor’s talk about his profession and his scientific pursuits ; while besides this she had a pleasing sense of having helped and aided him, and liked his way of coming to her for advice when he was in any social or other difficulty. She had learned, too, that she had a singular control over his moods, and the gentle power thus exercised flattered her. She had no full means of relatively gauging and contrasting the characters of these two men, but she liked both, and influenced both, and had greatly assisted one of them, which was, little as she knew it as yet, a somewhat dangerous protectorate. It was an unguessed secret to Dr. Wendell, yet it would have been clear to Helen Morton, had she been still at home, that the man who was most ignorant of his own good fortune was the one her friend would perhaps prefer, in time; and that the quiet, manly, unpretending soldier, with his strong, definitive character, would find no such open path to her heart.

Alice looked at him as he rose to say good-by to Mr. Wilmington, and took in with a woman’s quick eye the goodhumor of the sun-browned face and the little scar on the left temple, and saw that he still carried his arm thrust in his half-buttoned coat; disliking the sling, which would have marked him as a wounded man, and singled him out for remark and attention. She well knew that the man who now sat so quietly talking to her was renowned in war as a relentless disciplinarian, and as a soldier gallant beyond what was common even in those splendid and terrible years. She was also aware that at home he was trusted and honored, and that, with a woman’s tact and diplomacy, she had been keeping him at a certain friendly distance ; not able to love him, and yet unwilling quite to lose him from her life.

They chatted pleasantly of their absent friends and of the army, and then she read to him from Mrs. Morton’s letter some of the amusing and interesting bits.

“ And so Hester,” he said, “ has found a generous cousin. I am very glad for the child. I suppose now she will have plenty of friends. And after all, though the Wendells are very good people, I don’t think Miss Wendell is quite the person to bring up a girl who so clearly belongs to the most refined class.”

Mrs. Westerley agreed with the theory of the remark, but nevertheless, without precisely knowing why, did not like it.

“ Miss Ann,” she said, adroitly, “ is so good that I don’t always like to ask myself whether she is agreeable or not. Few people would have done what the Wendells did for such a little waif as Hester.” Then she took a quite feminine vengeance ; “ I saw her last month, by the way, and you never could imagine the change six months have made. She seemed to me, at first, too childish for her years ; but even before she went away she was what my nurse used to call ‘eldering.’ You know, colonel, how at sixteen girls make in six months that curious leap into womanhood that never ceases to surprise one.”

“Yes,” he returned; “they quickly go past the young fellows who are a year or two older, or even more.”

“ I think Master Arty will discover that, to his astonishment. I believe I shall keep her for you, colonel! When the war is over, you will have to settle down, and by that time Miss Gray will be a pearl of pearls. I shall set about educating her myself; and as I know your wants pretty well, only imagine what a success I shall make ! ”

The return shot was artful, and went home.

“ But if the pupil is to become all this, what must the teacher be ? ”

“ Oh, that was worthy of Colonel Morton in his most devoted moments. I must get my work. I don’t see how you men can talk all day with your hands idle. That is the reason, I believe, you are always getting into mischief. ‘ For Satan,’ you know.”

Then she threw a tangled skein of silk over a chair-back, and began to wind it on a spool, upon which the colonel promptly transferred the skein to his own hands, remarking, “ I shall do much better than a chair, and as I shall have my hands employed I shall be kept out of mischief.” Mrs. Westerley was not quite so sure about this, but she said, —

“Very well; and keep your hands quiet, now, and don’t try to help me. Men always do.”

Fox wondered how many men had gone through this pleasant ordeal, He might have recalled the sad experience of Major Dobbin.

“ I shall be angelic,” he said.

“ And does n’t it hurt your arm ? ”

“ No ; my arm gives me no pain unless I let it bang down.”

“ Well, you can rest when you are tired ; ” and as she chatted, her quick white hands went to and fro, carefully avoiding his touch. She knew as well as he the peril of the situation, but like the larger number of pleasant women, good or bad, there was in Alice Westerley a coquetry, which, to tell the truth, she did not always care to repress; and she now comprehended clearly enough that she was tormenting the man before her, and was herself slyly half enjoying t he danger of the situation. Still, he had brought it on himself. “ Don’t move so,” she said. “ Is n’t it like cat’scradle ? Did you ever play cat’s-cradle when you were little? Hester is an adept at it. I shall not have to include it in my scheme of education. Then it is like all other learning: there comes a point when you cannot go further. There should be a book about it.” “Confound Hester!” he muttered.

“ I beg your pardon, I did not hear you. Perhaps you were thinking that General Lee— I beg Mr. Wilmington’s pardon, ‘ Mr. ’ Lee—must understand cat’s-cradle.”

“ No, indeed; nothing of the kind. Why do you torment me so ? ”

“ I ? ” she said penitently, — “ I ? ”

“ Yes, you, Alice Westerley. You cannot really desire to give pain; it is not in your true nature. Or do you think that I am such a fool as to ” — “No,” she replied, in confusion, interrupting him, “ I don’t. But why are you a fool?” Having said which she repented. “I mean — I beg pardon, I don’t mean — I ” —

“ No matter,” he returned. “ I am a fool, because I love a woman who does not care for me.”

“ Then I would n’t ask her to love me.”

“ And why not ? ” The man was strangely moved, and was in fact shaken by the effort to control himself. He was afraid, and his head, still troubled by his wound, swam dizzily. The breach and the fierce rush at the cannon mouth was a trifle to this. “ Why not, Alice Westerley ? ”

“Because—because,” she said, tangling the silk on her long fingers, “she might say No.”

“ But would she ? ”

“ I think so,” and she kept looking down at the silk. Had she glanced up at the pained white face, his fate might have been different; but she was embarrassed and troubled, and held her peace, still nervously fumbling with the snarled threads. A less tender man would have profited by her evident doubt.

“ Would you ask for a glass of water?” he said. “My head is swimming — I — in fact, I ” —

“I am sorry!” she exclaimed; but, happy at the release, and alarmed at his words, she hastily left the room, to seek herself what he wanted.

“My God,” he muttered, “what is life worth now! How it takes it out of a fellow! ”

Presently she came back. “ Thank you,” he said. “ It was nothing. I am sorry to have troubled you. I am better now. Have you no more to say, Mrs. Westerley ? ”

“ No, I don’t think I have. I have hurt you. I did not want to hurt you. I wish you had not made me do it. When do you go back?”

“In a week.”

“ Then we shall see you to-morrow ? ” she asked. “ No, I forgot. I shall be too busy. Oh, of course that is nonsense, but you understand. I could n’t stand it. My regards to Arty. Good-by.”

She put out her hand, but he had already turned away. “ Good-by,” she said. “ I am sorry. . . . Won’t you try to think how much — how sorry I am ? ”

“ You can’t be as sorry as I am. I wish you were. Good-by.”

Alice Westerley went upstairs slowly and thoughtfully. “ Tell John that I am at home to no one ; remember, to no one,” she said, as she passed her maid. Then she sat down at the window, rested her chin on her hands, and looking out across the shrubbery, saw Colonel Fox moving slowly down the lane. She noticed that he carried a cane, and was viciously switching off the tops of the wayside dandelions. Very soon he was lost to view.

“ He is angry,” she thought. “ I wish he had been angry with me. I deserved it. Well, it’s no use to think about it. I can’t do it, and there come the ponies, and I wish all the men were dead ! ” After which emphatic statement she drove to one or two shops, and then descended on several young women at the local Sanitary Commission, and as vicepresident made things a little unpleasant ; and coming out met her neighbor, Mrs. Grace, a calm and somewhat subdued lady, who browsed like a placid cow on the gossip of her little circle of a morning, and chewed at evening, in the solitary companionship of her knitting needles, the sweet or bitter cud of Such mild stores of social news as she had not yet digested. She had not failed to see Colonel Fox as he walked away from the widow’s gate, and she had seen him when he went in, and the visit had been long.

“ I hear my cousin, Colonel Fox, has come home wounded. When does he go back ? So dreadful, is n’t it, all this fighting ? I am glad my James did n’t go, or Tom.”

“I know nothing of Colonel Fox’s movements,” returned the widow, with unusual sharpness.

“ I thought you might,” replied Mrs. Grace. I thought he was a friend of yours, and I had no intention of saying anything disagreeable.”

“ I suppose not. People do not always know ; some people never know ; ” but then, feeling that she had been rude, and being really a kind-hearted woman, she turned back, and said, “ Excuse me, Mrs. Grace. I did n’t mean to be so short, but I have had some bad news today. You will pardon me, I am sure.”

The widow might have spared herself this apology, as the only sensation her neighbor had was a sense of being well provisioned for the day in the knowledge that there was something between the two friends.

As for Mrs. Westerley, she smiled as she sped away with her ponies : “ A vulgar woman, and hopelessly stout. She must have what Dr. Wendell calls fatty degeneration of the heart! ”

S. Weir Mitchell.