scorched and smoking ruin on the south porch, a tousled brown head,
with ghastly face, was clasped in Lilian's arms, pillowed on Lilian's
fair, white bosom. Willett had fainted from fright, pain and reaction,
and the unheroic, untried, unfearing girl had blistered her own fair
hands, her own soft, rounded, clasping arms, yet saw and felt nothing
but dread for his suffering and joy for his safety. Even the mother for
a moment could not take her rescued darling from that fond, fearless,
impassioned embrace. All in that desperate instant the veil of virgin
shame had burned away. In the fierce heat and shock and peril the
latent love force had burst its bonds, the budding lily had blossomed
into womanhood.

And upon that picture, pallid, weak and suffering, another neighbor,
another pain-stricken young soldier gazed in silence, then turned
unobtrusively away. There was no one to help him back to the reclining
chair from which he had been startled at the almost frenzied shriek of
alarm. There was no further talk--no thought of signals that night;
Archer had had enough of fire. They bore the reviving officer,
presently, to a vacant room in Stannard's quarters, and Lilian was led
to her own. There were bandages about both hands and arms when next
morning she appeared upon the gallery. They hid the red ravages on the
fair, white skin, but what was there to veil the radiant light that
shone in her eyes, the burning blushes that mantled her soft and
rounded cheeks? Archer took her to his heart and kissed her and turned
to his duty with a sigh. Mrs. Archer clung to and hovered about her,
silent, for what was there to say? Mrs. Stannard came over, all smiles
and sunshine, to announce that "He" had passed a comfortable night, and
"His" first waking thoughts and words were for her, as indeed they
should have been, and, so far as audible words were concerned, they
possibly were. What else could Mrs. Stannard have said when she saw
that winsome, yet appealing little face?

And in such wise was our Lilian wooed; in such wise was she won.
Contrary to Bentley's wishes, Willett had essayed to smoke, and so set
his bed afire. Contrary to all convention, the love of the maiden had
been the first to manifest itself to public eye, but Willett manfully
rose to the occasion. In the midst of anxiety, uncertainty and danger
there beamed one ray, at least, of radiant, unshadowed, buoyant hope
and bliss and shy delight. Lilian Archer envied no gir