d fears were rioting in that gentle and innocent, yet
troubled heart. A very unheroic little heroine is this of ours. It was
a time when she might well be thinking of the perils by which they and
their defenders were encompassed round about, of the bereaved and
broken-hearted woman crying to heaven for her murdered husband and her
stolen children, of the scouts and couriers shot down from ambush in
their efforts to reach them in their isolation or to creep through with
messages to the columns afield, of the wounded lying with but scant
attention and puny guard, weary marches away, of the comrades killed or
died of wounds in fierce grapple with the warriors of the desert and
the mountains--even of this young soldier within their gates, sore
stricken in daring rescue of a helpless woman, he to whose coolness and
command of self--and others--had saved her from the rattler's fang.
Very possibly she did think of it--and often--and tried to think of
them still oftener, but all the time, it must be owned, in her heart of
hearts she was hearing again the soft, caressing tone of that deep,
rich voice--"the words of love then spoken;" she saw again the lustrous
eyes that shone and burned into hers despite their drooping lids, the
graceful, gallant form of that picture of the knight and gentleman
whose swift wooing had made such wondrous way. Lilian Archer was but a
child in spite of years and schooling. She spent her earliest years
within the shadow of the flag and the sound of the drum. She had seen
nothing of garrison life from that morning in '61, when she had just
passed her sixth birthday, when they were bundled aboard a wheezing
river stern wheeler and floated for many a day and many and many a long
mile down a muddy, twisting stream--her father so grave and anxious,
and some of the officers with him so urgent and appealing. She could
not understand why her mother should so often sit with tear-brimming
eyes and clasp her to her bosom with the boy brother she so loved--and
teased. Father's home was in a proud old border state, and they went
there for a week or two, after that sorrowful day in St. Louis when
three of father's old friends and comrades came for one last conference
and then--a last good-by--two of them refusing his hand. They had
resigned and followed their state. They had striven to take him with
them to swell the ranks of the proud young army of the South. They had
loved him well and he them, but there was somet