ou have given me,
tells me you still care for me, though, God knows, I don't see how you
could, except that it is your nature and you can't help it. But what I
want to know is this, has the outrage I put upon you caused the fire, that
once burned in your heart for me, to smoulder to ashes, where only a
pleasant warmth remains, or is there still fire there that I can rekindle
to the old-time blaze, no matter what the effort required? What I want,
Julia, is my old place in your heart, if I can have it. I was never a man
that could do things in moderation; and, God help me, undeserving as I am,
that and that alone will satisfy me."

"The fire still burns, my husband; O, how can you doubt it?"

And then the hungry arms closed about her. After a little, when she had
fixed him cosily on the couch and was kneeling beside him, he said:

"I am not by nature an humble man, nor one glib at confession; but there
is one thing I will say, my love, this choleric temperament of mine has
been to me severer flagellation than was ever administered by priestly
hands in expiation of heinous offenses. But I will _down_ it yet, my love;
God helping me, I will down it yet."

The door opened and a golden head was visible.

"May I come in, dear Mamma?"

Colonel Marsden stretched forth his disengaged hand and drew the child to
him.

"She is like you, love," he said fondly.

"Her eyes are yours, Robert. I remember, when she was a baby, how I used
to hang over her, longing for her to awaken, that I might see her eyes."

Colonel Marsden's grasp tightened on his wife's slender white fingers.

"Mam' Sarah was afraid I would make her nervous. She would steal her away,
carry her down to the loom-house, and rock her to sleep on her lap."

"I remember it perfectly, Mamma," said Roberta, grave as an owl. "I wore
the same robe and cloak and cap that I dressed the gun in that time."

Colonel Marsden laughed heartily; her diverting words, coming just at that
moment, were a relief to both. The negroes had talked to the child so much
about her birth and babyhood, she had come to believe that she remembered
them herself. Every date of late years went back to the time "fo' Lil
Missus wuz born'd," or the time "sence she was born'd," or the time "when
she was born'd." Old Squire especially humored the conceit:

"Lemme see, Lil Missus; what room?"

"The front room up stairs, Uncle Squire, with the sweet-brier roses
climbing in the window, and the beau