, no one appeared to think it necessary to pursue
the subject. Supper was no sooner ended than the Sergeant dismissed
his guests, and then held a long and confidential dialogue with his
daughter. He was little addicted to giving way to the gentler emotions,
but the novelty of his present situation awakened feelings that he was
unused to experience. The soldier or the sailor, so long as he acts
under the immediate supervision of a superior, thinks little of the
risks he runs, but the moment he feels the responsibility of command,
all the hazards of his undertaking begin to associate themselves in his
mind: with the chances of success or failure. While he dwells less
on his own personal danger, perhaps, than when that is the principal
consideration, he has more lively general perceptions of all the risks,
and submits more to the influence of the feelings which doubt creates.
Such was now the case with Sergeant Dunham, who, instead of looking
forward to victory as certain, according to his usual habits, began to
feel the possibility that he might be parting with his child for ever.

Never before had Mabel struck him as so beautiful as she appeared that
night. Possibly she never had displayed so many engaging qualities to
her father; for concern on his account had begun to be active in her
breast; and then her sympathies met with unusual encouragement through
those which had been stirred up in the sterner bosom of the veteran.
She had never been entirely at her ease with her parent, the great
superiority of her education creating a sort of chasm, which had been
widened by the military severity of manner he had acquired by dealing so
long with beings who could only be kept in subjection by an unremitted
discipline. On the present occasion, however, the conversation between
the father and daughter became more confidential than usual, until Mabel
rejoiced to find that it was gradually becoming endearing, a state of
feeling that the warm-hearted girl had silently pined for in vain ever
since her arrival.

"Then mother was about my height?" Mabel said, as she held one of her
father's hands in both her own, looking up into his face with humid
eyes. "I had thought her taller."

"That is the way with most children who get a habit of thinking of their
parents with respect, until they fancy them larger and more commanding
than they actually are. Your mother, Mabel, was as near your height as
one woman could be to another."

"And