an, whose voice I
had heard before the stable-door, and at a moment when I thought that
my movements would attract no attention I took advantage of the freedom
of a public-house and sauntered aimlessly into the room as if I had no
particular business there. I saw with surprise that the chap who had
proposed to steal the horses was one of the merchants of the town at
whose store I had occasionally traded. In the far end of the room,
reading a newspaper by the light of a small fire, sat a slip of a
youth. He wore a military cloak that covered his figure from his neck
to his top-boots.

I saw that he was not so absorbed in the paper that he failed to make a
note of my presence in the room, and he shifted himself around in his
chair so that he could get a better view of me, and still leave his
face in the shadow. Near him sat a motherly-looking woman of fifty. She
was well preserved for her age, and wore a smile on her face that was
good to look at. The youngster said something to her in a low tone, and
she immediately turned her attention to me. Some other words passed
between the two, and then the woman beckoned to me. I obeyed the
summons with alacrity, for I liked her face.

"You seem to be lonely," she said. "Have a seat by our little fire.
This is not a guest-room, but we have been so overrun lately that we
have had to turn it over to the public." She paused a moment and then
went on. "You are over-young to be in the army," she suggested.

She had turned so that she looked me full in the face, and there was a
kindly, nay, a generous light in her eyes, and I could no more have
lied to her in the matter than I could have lied to my own mother if
she had been alive. "I do not have a very hard time in the army," I
replied.

"No, I suppose not," she remarked. "You are one to make friends
wherever you go. Few are so fortunate; I have known only one or two."

There was a note of sadness in her tones that touched me profoundly.
The cause I can't explain, and the effect was beyond description. I
hesitated before making any reply, and when I did I tried to turn it
off lightly. "I never saw but one," I answered, "on whom I desired to
make an impression."

"And who was that?" the woman inquired with a bright smile of sympathy.

"You will think it a piece of foolishness," I replied; "but it was a
lady riding in a top-buggy. I had never seen her before and never
expect to see her again."

The youngster clutched his paper