and spread the few words over the whole sheet.

"DEAR KATEY, [he wrote,] Mail about to close, so I hasten to send a line. Yours just rec'd. I am astonished at you; expected you would do something unheard of away off there alone. You never could

take care of yourself. [Ah, Jack knew.] I shall come on as soon as I can get a leave of absence and see what is to be done. In the meantime you must go directly to Josie. [The Professor was quite ignored in his calculations.] Shall write her by this mail. She is not coming to Washington at present; our movements are so uncertain.

JACK." Katey laughed as she read the letter, much as she used to laugh long ago, or even a little time ago, before the chill which had checked everything like merriment had crept over her. It was so like hot-headed Jack, who evidently believed that his presence alone was necessary to annul the marriage and make all as it should be!

Professor Dyce lay back in an arm-chair, regarding her as she read it. The weary expression which was becoming habitual to his countenance lifted for a moment at the sound of her laugh. She turned to him with a little quick natural movement holding out the letter. Then she drew it back; she had discovered a postscript.

"Whom should, I meet here one day but Dacre Home," Jack wrote. "He is in the camp adjoining ours. Deserted from the rebels, they say; but is awfully plucky. Won some bars for his sleeve at Big Bethel, where, according to the boys, he tried to throw his life away. It may make a man of him yet. He knows me, of course; but we never speak."

Katey read it, her face growing warm. It might indeed make a man of him, as Jack said. Poor Christine! would it add any joy to her life?

C

She held the letter in her hands, hesitating an instant before giving it to the fessor. She was ashamed, feeling her face so warm: Dacre Home's name had never been mentioned between them. She was glad, only glad for this hope of his future; but would the Professor understand it? She almost wished Jack had not written of him.

The Professor saw the blush, marked

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"It is from

the momentary hesitation. Jack," she said, holding it out to him. And what does Jack say?" He spoke in the grave, kind tone to which Katey was so accustomed, but made no movement to take the letter.

"It is very short, won't you read it? Only don't mind Jack," she added hastily, remembering the first part of the letter which for the moment had slipped from her memory. She watched his face over which an amused smile passed as he read the few lines referring to their marriage. "He has always taken care of me," she explained quickly.

"Yes, I see;" and he fell into a reverie. He had not turned the page. Should she remind him of the postscript, or let it pass?

"There is something more upon the other side," she said; and he took up the sheet again. As his eyes left the last word they were lifted to hers. But there was neither doubt nor suspicion in the glance. "I am very glad;" she said quietly, meeting his glance without shrinking. "It may do everything for him, as Jack says." Then she bent over her work as she went on : "I know a girl who will rejoice over any good news of him; for she expects to be his wife."

She hoped he would offer some remark, ask a question, say anything which would call for some word more definite from her lips in regard to Christine; but there was only silence in the long bare room. Outside a little stir and faint commotion had arisen. The evening had turned warm and although a low fire burned in the grate, she had left her seat and dropped one of the windows. It might be this which had filled the room with a sound as of muffled voices and moving feet, bringing the street strangely near. She checked her fingers drawing the needle in and out, to listen. Everything startled her now; she was nervous and weak and easily alarmed by the conflicting reports which each day brought from the seat of war, as well as the strange rumors floating about town of possibilities nearer home. A convention, it was whispered, was in secret session even now to vote the State out of the Union. Were they not lingering here too long?

"Hark! what is that?" as a low continuous murmur like the repressed voices of a multitude seemed all at once to fill the room. The Professor started to his feet, when, without word or warning, the

There is a crowd about the house," he gasped when he could find his voice. "I I greatly fear for you, my friend. But perhaps you might escape now through the garden."

"Don't be alarmed;" said Professor Dyce, laying his hand upon Katey's shoulder. She had fallen back upon her chair white and trembling. There was a strange, resonant ring in his voice, but no quaver of fear. "Go, go;" Katey tried to say.

If

"It is too late for that," he replied. they intend to threaten they have surrounded the house already. But I think you exaggerate the danger."

The murmur of voices had risen to a shout of "Dyce! Dyce!"

Then Professor Paine rose to the occasion. "I will speak to them," said the little man moving towards the door. "They know my sentiments."

Professor Dyce had been hastily fastening the window shutters. He took Katey in his arms as though she had been a child. carried her through the dressing-closet and laid her upon the bed in the room beyond. Then he returned to the parlor. It was the work of an instant. "Take care of my wife," to Professor Paine, and he was gone. He closed the heavy outer door behind him, as he stepped out suddenly in the face of the crowd. The flaring gas-light below him lit up his form, and the strong, calm face which betrayed no signs of fear. The unexpected appearance, when they had anticipated flight or resistance took them by surprise, and in that one moment he had a chance to scan that part of the mob which surged at his feet. It was led, he saw at once, by a bully, as such an assemblage invariably is a great hulking fellow whom he recognized at once as a man who did odd jobs about the office of the lawyer who had opposed his claims to the estate he had recently gained. Ah! he said to himself, it is easy to recognize the lever to this movement, and he was confident as to the identity of certain shadowy forms hovering upon the outskirts of the crowd; public disturbances serve private ends often and well. For the most part it was made up of the idle and curious, among whom women were plainly discernible; one, with an old black shawl covering her figure, hid her pallid face and blinking eyes behind a thick veil.

"Ah, Jim Boles, is that you?" said the Professor, in a cool, almost jocular tone of familiarity, singling out the leader who had pressed to the front, surrounded by a staff of ragged, half-grown boys; "what do you want?"

The man had worked himself to the point of heroism. He had even learned a little speech for the occasion, in which "liberty" and "the stars and bars," often repeated, were to act a telling part. This abrupt, simple question drove it at once from his mind and seemed to reduce the whole affair to a very ordinary occurrence with no opportunity for sentiment or poetry, in which Jim secretly delighted. Hang out the flag;" d-n ye, he added under his breath, making up for his clipped eloquence by an oath and bringing from under his coat, as he spoke, a small Confederate flag tightly furled, which was to have been waved at a certain point in his speech. his speech. The sight of it, the sudden. flaming out of its colors before the crowd, whose excitement had fallen to curiosity, might have roused it to frenzy. So much could a bit of bunting do when it represented an idea for which men died!

The Professor leaned down and took it carelessly. It was like gunpowder, he knew, and the eyes of the people before him were sparks. He rolled it still more closely in his hands as though unconsciously, while he replied: "And make myself liable to arrest for treason? You forget that the United States still holds jurisdiction here. You had better go home' and to bed, Jim."

"You'll have to be up early to take down the shutters, you know," added a piping voice in the crowd.

A little laugh rose around the already discomfited leader. One's followers are not always one's friends. "They seem to be just a talkin' pleasant like," one man explained to another, who was too far away to hear. And this ran down through the crowd which began slowly to disperse, followed by the laugh which confirmed the impression that nothing was to be done after all. In five minutes the street was deserted, or given up to.its usual passers, when a squad of police came up the hill in great apparent haste to inquire into the disturbance.

"There is no disturbance, gentlemen," Professor Dyce replied. "I can only regret that you should have been anroyed But the by such a report," he added.

"Katey !"

"Don't be angry; but indeed I could not stay there. It was no fault of his;" as poor little Professor Paine who, true to his trust, would not be left, stepped out from behind her. There was no time to blame or praise, for the whole school, headed by Miss Hersey, came crowding in from the music-room at that moment, Clary, for once too frightened to cry, having outstripped the others.

"It is all over; and indeed there was no cause for alarm," the Professor hastened to say, and dismissed them. In those days a man's foes were truly of his own household, he realized, when more than one pair of blazing eyes and compressed lips met his glance as the girls turned reluctantly back. Miss Wormley appeared in their midst as they were saying good-night. There was an unusual color in her face and she breathed heavily like one who had come in great haste. Something like rain-drops sparkled upon her gown. Outside a sudden shower had risen-a gust of wind and rain, heavy and angry, beating against the windows and drowning the sound of their voices.

"O, did you know-?" began one of the girls in a shrill tone, recognizing her

as a new comer.

She felt Professor Dyce's keen eyes. In spite of her efforts the color spread and deepened upon her face.

"Yes," she replied hastily; "it was dreadful, was it not?

"O very;" responded the Professor grimly, forcing her blinking eyes to meet his straightforward glance. "The shower, you mean?" Then he turned and entered the parlor. She knew that he understood her, that he had fathomed her designs. Ah well, she thought, then I may work openly. But that night she lost the opportunity forever.

Professor Paine and Miss Hersey awaited Professor Dyce in his parlor. He closed the door after him, threw himself into the chair he had left so suddenly earlier in the evening and, resting his forehead upon his hands, seemed lost in thought.

"What is this, about a convention?" he asked at last abruptly, rousing himself.

Professor Paine looked timidly, fearfully, from one to another of the little group. They were all enemies to the cause, he knew. Still a few days, perhaps even hours later, it would be no secret. It may adjourn to-night," he replied, and, with a sudden glow upon the faded cheeks, “we shall carry the State."

"You never will." Then Professor Dyce checked himself. Why discuss again the subject which of late had never been broached between them? "Our time has come," he said to Katey. "We must leave at once." Years afterwards, looking back upon this hour, and the timid little man who had been his steadfast friend, it was comforting to remember that they trusted each other to the last, and though they went far asunder as the Poles no bitter words passed between them. "And you to Miss Hersey, "will you go with us?"

The two women stood holding each other by the hand. Katey tightened her clasp. The color swept over Miss Hersey's face, then it was pale again. My home is here," she said.

66

will stay."

"No; I

"There is no time to lose;" interrupted Professor Paine nervously, even now you may find it difficult to leave town, after what has occured to-night. Certainly, you can take nothing with you. The best plan would be to catch the midnight train north, at Littleton, if you could be carried over there.'

And so the matter was finally decided and Prof. Paine hastened away to secure a conveyance, ostensibly for his own use.

The moment their conference was broken up, Katey retired to her bed-room, to pick up a few necessary articles which could be thrust into a hand satchel, and pack, as best she could, the remainder of her wardrobe and personal effects which were to be left behind.

She was kneeling upon the floor before a half filled trunk, confusion and disorder about her, danger perhaps ahead, and yet happier than she had been for weeks. They were to take up their wanderings again. Where they were going she had not thought to ask. It did not matter. Her hat and cloak were thrown upon a chair near by ready to put on. A moment more and the Professor would come for her. The door opened and he entered the room.

"Don't let me disturb you. It is not yet time to start," said he, moving about

restlessly as she went on with her work. All at once he paused at a little distance, his arms folded, his gaze upon her. “You have not asked where you are going."

"No," she answered brightly, “I don't care."

"So that you leave here," he added. "You are right. It was folly to remain so long."

Why did he speak so sadly? Katey looked up in haste. Was he ill, that there should have come such a whiteness to his face? Care and the annoyances of the past few days had worn upon him. He should rest when they were once safely

away.

"I think you had better go immediately to your sister-in-law. Jack wished it, you know," he went on. "And Mrs. Estemere has perhaps arrived by this time. I shall take you there myself and see that you are comfortably settled. You will be happy with your own friends and I am glad to feel that you need want for nothing. I am not a poor man now, you know. But I shall arrange all that."

He spoke hurriedly, almost disconnectedly. Katey only stared without reply when he paused. She had not yet gathered the meaning of his words. Of course they should go to Josie, or to Delphine if she had returned. Katey had not considered the subject until now, yet this was the most natural course to take, she knew. But what was this something beneath his words, which shocked and startled her? What was he saying?

"I fear it was all a mistake from the beginning. But it is too late to go back to that now."

His voice sounded hoarse over the last words. His face was turned away. Then he went on in his usual deep, grave tone. "I shall go at once to Washington and apply for a position in the field or in some hospital; wherever I can hope to be of

use.

And leave ME?" She had found her voice at last. The words came like a cry of pain. The pretty white gown she was folding fell out of her hands as she sprang from the floor. "O you wouldn't do that. I should never be a care to you," she pleaded hurriedly, forgetting her fears, her pride, everything, but this terrible prospect which darkened the future. "I would go anywhere, do anything; I am not afraid of hardships; only take me. I can't be left behind," she cried. "Other women follow

their husbands, why should not I? I know I am not very nice, but―"

"Child! what do you mean?" He seized her almost roughly and held her off for an instant while he read the pale face with its trembling lines of pain and terror. Then he took her in his arms. "We do not deserve happiness," he said solemnly, " since we have almost let it slip out of our hands." And you are not nice?" he added, presently. He laughed a low happy laugh. "Ah, well, I will try to be resigned."

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CHAPTER XXIX.

MARRIAGE BELLS.

THERE is a blaze of light in Delphine's city home, as if a summer day had awakened,-night though it is, bringing its arms full of flowers. They trail along, blossom and peep over arch and doorway, they hang from picture and chandelier, they blush and nestle and give out their sweet perfume everywhere. The Estemeres have returned, and to-night they entertain their friends in honor of Katey's marriage and Jack's coming home. For Jack has won a short leave of absence at last, though he has resigned all thought of arranging Katey's affairs anew.

"You never could take care of yourself;" he said, when he appeared unexpectedly to them all one day, and had released Katey from his bearish, brotherly embrace.

"I know," she replied, "and so what could I do but allow some one else that troublesome privilege!" and she presented her husband. Jack gave him one keen glance from his handsome eyes as the Professor came forward by no means abashed by this encounter, with a laugh on his lips over Katey's characteristic speech, and the hatchet which Jack had been brandishing over Katey's captor all the way from the banks of the Potomac, was buried on the spot.

In one of the upper rooms of the house Katey is putting the last touches to her toilet for the evening. Happy Katey! who feels that she has nothing more to desire, and is almost frightened at the great joy which has come to her. She sweeps down the long room like a queen in her trailing robes, white and shimmering. There are orange flowers in her hair and a veil of soft lace caught at her shoulders falls away from her pretty bare arms. She recalls her wedding day and the dusty,

torn, gray gown, and smiles over the remembrance. She will always preserve it, to the day of her death, and yet it is pleasant to be a bride and wear a wedding gown, she thinks to-night. But she forgets it all when she kneels upon the hearth-rug before the Professor.

And so you always remembered me?" she said, dreamily. her eyes upon the fire, taking up the conversation interrupted a moment before.

"Yes; from the night at the party, when you came running up the stairs in that odd flowered gown, with my crutch in your hand. I used to fancy when I was abroad, years afterwards, that I would come home and find you out some day. I had learned your name, you know."

"But you never told me at La Fayette that we had met before. Perhaps you had forgotten."

66

I re

By no means; on the contrary, cognized your name at once, and flatter myself that my influence helped to turn the scale in your favor against the many applicants for the place you sought in the school. You can imagine, perhaps, my curiosity in regard to you; you know the surprise and consternation the sight of you at first awakened, for I did not hear your name at all that evening at Mrs. Durant's and never for a moment suspected that you were the Miss Earle I was on my way to Lafayette to meet. The double surprise after having seen you masquerading at the junction was almost overpowering. You were a fascinating problem in those few first weeks a dangerous one, I found later."

"From Minna Hauser!" There was a flutter of cards tied with white ribbons, as Katey opened the envelope. "So Minna and Hans are married at last," she exclaimed joyously; "but what is this?" and she drew out a little note, not in Minna's round hand. It was from Christine, and as she read, Katey's face grew warm and strangely bright. It was written in the hospital, Camp Fairfax, Virginia, and a few lines will suffice to quote here. "I know it all," Christine wrote, "Dacre has told me while I sat here holding his hand; and we are to be married to-morrow. I wanted to write you now, before I slept. Dear Katey, how can I ever bless you enough? He wished me to write. He believes you will be glad to know. He has been very near death; but now he will live, the doctor says. you don't know what that means to me. He has won his shoulder-straps, and when he is able to return to camp I am to go with him. I am never to leave him again. And Minna is married and happy, and father and Wulf are well; but no one is so happy as I, dear Katey. I laugh and sing, but more often I cry. To laugh is not enough. It seems as though one must shed tears over such great joy."

O,

"So it has all come right at last," Katey says softly, when the Professor has put the letter again into her hands. "Not in my way; but God's ways are better than ours."

She rests her cheek against his knee, thoughtful and still. The little French clock upon the mantel marks the passing moments with faint subdued ticks like heart beats.

"Please salute the bride," she says presently, raising the broad smooth forehead with its coronet of dark hair; "they always salute the bride, you know."

He takes the sweet grave face between his hands and kisses her lips.

"And they offer good wishes," she adds "God bless you, my wife."