e cloak, shadowed, too, by the wet hat
brim, drooping under gilded crossed sabres.

"You are not the usual mail-carrier?" she asked languidly.

"No, ma'am"--in a nasal voice.

"Colonel Gay sent you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Miss Carryl turned, lifted a small salt sack, and offered it to the
Messenger, who leaned wide from her saddle and took it in one hand.

"You are to take this bag to the Deal farm. Colonel Gay has told you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you. And there is no letter to-day. Will you have a few peaches
to eat on the way? I always give the mail-carrier some of my peaches to
eat."

Miss Carryl lifted a big, blue china bowl full of superb, white,
rare-ripe peaches, and, coming to the veranda's edge, motioned the
Messenger to open the saddlebags. Into it she poured a number of
peaches.

"They are perfectly ripe," she said; "I hope you will like them."

"Thank'y, ma'am."

"And, Soldier," she turned to add with careless grace, "if you would be
kind enough to drop the pits back into the saddlebag and give them to
Mr. Deal he would be glad of them for planting."

"Yes'm; I will----"

"How many peaches did I give you? Have you enough?"

"Plenty, ma'am; you gave me seven, ma'am."

"Seven? Take two more--I insist--that makes nine, I think. Good day; and
thank you."

But the Messenger did not hear; there was something far more interesting
to occupy her mind--a row of straw-thatched beehives under the fruit
trees at the eastern end of the house.

From moment to moment, homing or outgoing bees sped like bullets across
her line of vision; the hives were busy now that a gleam of pale
sunshine lay across the grass. One bee, leaving the hive, came humming
around the Cherokee roses. The Messenger saw the little insect alight
and begin to scramble about, plundering the pollen-powdered blossom. The
bee was a yellow one.

Suddenly the Messenger gathered bridle and touched her hat; and away she
spurred, putting her horse to a dead run.

Passing the inner lines, she halted to give and receive the password,
then tossed a bunch of letters to the corporal, and spurred forward.
Halted by the outer pickets, she exchanged amenities again, rid herself
of the remainder of the mail, and rode forward, loosening the revolver
in her holster. Then she ate her first peach.

It was delicious--a delicate, dripping, snow-white pulp, stained with
pink where the pit rested. There was nothing suspicious about that pit,
or any of th