did not say, and were altogether the most effective feature of that most
effective face. Often Sandy, who had taken more notice of those eyes and
eyelashes than any one else in the world,--although they had not been
unremarked in general,--could not decipher what she meant by them, and
at other times he marveled why she should say so much with them instead
of with the means which Nature had bestowed for the expression of her
views,--of which, too, she made ample use. Those eyelashes, for
instance, indicated disdain, reproof, reproach, and yet a repudiation of
comprehension when Captain Stuart said significantly that he hoped she
found her footing quite satisfactory to-day--she was wearing a spruce
pair of prunella brodequins which had come in the pack. With his bluff
raillery he inquired of her how she had the conscience to grudge her
husband the triumph of knowing that she had shed a tun of tears for his
absence yesterday and had demanded of the commandant of the post that
the whole strength of the garrison should instantly take the field to
search for him.

"For discipline," she answered, with placid solemnity. "If he knew that
I care enough to weep for him instead of for my shabby shoes, my
authority would be shattered. And a mutiny, under any circumstances, is
not pretty."

The river carried the officer's jovial laughter far along the lapsing
current that was growing steely now, reflecting a pale gray sky of very
luminous tone, beneath which the primeval woods were dark and gloomy,
and the mountains on the east loomed but dimly through the gray mists,
while on the west the summit-line was hard and darkly distinct. It was
winter, for all the still air; no sound of bird, no chirring of cicada,
no rustle of leaf. The voice of the river rose quite alone in the
silence, and a single star seemed to palpitate in a white agitation as
it listened.

And when the party sat down on the rocky ledges of the river-bank,
Captain Demere was beside Odalie, and they talked not of this new
country lying before them, with the unread, unrecorded mystery of its
past, and the unsolved, impenetrable question of its future, but of his
own people. With her delicate tact she had evaded the continual
occupation of the general attention with her experiences and
expectations, and the details of her new home, and led him to speak of
himself and his own interests, which he was insensibly brought to do
with little disguise, so potent were the re