e stranger, gazing after thorn, as he picked up his coat
and started for the spot where he had left his hat. "What a marvelous
country it is! The soldiers are uncouth farmer lads, yet they fight and
die like heroes, and the country maids have the speech and air of court
ladies. Geoffrey Yorke, you have wandered far afield; I would you had
time and chance to meet that lovely rebel again!" and with a deep-drawn
sigh he plunged farther into the woods.

CHAPTER II

BULLETS FOE DEFENSE

"Oh, Betty, Betty," cried Miss Moppet, as the pair gained the more
frequented road and cantered briskly on their homeward way, "what an
adventure we have had! Aunt Euphemia will no doubt bestow a sound rating
on me, for, alas!"--with a doleful glance downward--"see the draggled
condition of my habit."

"Never mind your habit, Moppet," said Betty. "Thank Heaven instead that
you are not lying stiff and cold at the bottom of the pond. You can
never know the agony I suffered when I saw you fall; I should have
plunged in after you in another second."

"Dearest Betty," said the child, looking lovingly at her, "I know you
can swim, but you never could have held me up as that stranger did. Oh!"
with sudden recollection, "we did not ask his name! Did you forget?"

"No," said Betty, "but when I told him ours and he did not give his name
in return, I thought perhaps he did not care to be known, and of course
forbore to press him."

"How handsome he was," said Moppet; "did you see his hair? And how
tightly it curled, wet as it was? And his eyes--surely you noted his
eyes, Betty?"

"Yes," replied Betty, blushing with remembrance of the parting glance
the hazel eyes had bestowed upon her; "he is a personable fellow
enough."

"Far handsomer than Josiah Huntington," said Moppet mischievously, "or
even Francis Plunkett."

"What does a little maid like you know of looks?" said Betty
reprovingly, "and what would Aunt Euphemia say to such comments, I
wonder?"

"You'll never tell tales of me," said Moppet, with the easy confidence
of a spoiled child. "Do you think he was a soldier--perhaps an officer
from Fort Trumbull, like the one Oliver brought home last April?"

"Very likely," said Betty. "Are you cold, Moppet? I am so afraid you may
suffer; stop talking so fast and muffle yourself more closely in the
cape. We must be hastening home," and giving her horse the whip, they
rode rapidly down hill.

Wolcott Manor, the house of which Betty