, was coming to New York.

Hugh and Rocket, they would make a splendid match, and so Alice thought,
as, on the day when Rocket was led away, she stood with her arms around
his graceful neck, whispering to him the words of love she would fain
have sent his master. She had recovered from the first shock of Hugh's
enlistment. She could think of him now calmly as a soldier; could pray
that God would keep him, and even feel a throb of pride that one who had
lived so many years in Kentucky, then poising almost equally in the
scale, should come out so bravely for the right, though by that act he
called down curses on his head from those at home who favored rebellion,
and who, if they fought at all, would cast in their lot with the
seceding States. She had written to Hugh a kind, sisterly letter,
telling him how proud she was of him, and how her sympathy and prayers
would follow him everywhere. "And if," she had added, in concluding,
"you are sick, or wounded, I will come to you as a sister might do. I
will find you wherever you are."

She had sent this letter to him three weeks before, and now she stood
caressing the beautiful Rocket, who sometimes proudly arched his long
neck, and then looked wistfully at the sad group gathered around him, as
if he knew that was no ordinary parting. Colonel Tiffton, who had heard
what was going on, had ridden over to expostulate with Mrs. Worthington
against sending Rocket North. "Better keep him at home," he said, "and
tell Hugh to come back, and let those who had raised the muss settle
their own difficulty."

The old colonel, who was a native of Virginia, did not know exactly
where he stood. "He was very patriotic," he said, "very, but hanged if
he knew which side to take--both were wrong. He didn't go Nell's
doctrine, for Nell was a rabid Secesh; neither did he swallow Abe
Lincoln, and he'd advise Alice to keep a little more quiet, for there
was no knowing what the hotheads might do. He'd heard of Harney's
threatening vengeance on all Unionists, and now that Hugh was gone he
might pounce on Spring Bank any night."

"Let him!" and Alice's blue eyes flashed brightly, while her girlish
figure seemed to expand and grow higher as she continued: "he will find
no cowards here. I never touched a revolver in my life. I am quite as
much afraid of one that is not loaded as of one that is, but I'll
conquer the weakness. I'll begin to-day. I'll learn to handle firearms.
I'll practice shooting at a