of him who had saved her, this very plain, sun-bleached, seasoned
young knight, who seemed quite ready to risk life or limb in her
defence, and who, said Willett, had lost most of his heart. It was
foolish in him, with her Harold there; still it was something to be
rewarded, somehow, and, womanlike, she tendered the contemplation of
her inaccessibility in his rival's bliss. "You'll come to see us soon,
Mr. Harris? I've so much to thank you for."

"Just as soon as the doctor will let me, Miss Archer," was his entirely
proper answer, and quite as properly our Lilian breathed a little sigh
of relief, as, nestling closer still, she sped lightly homeward,
clinging to her lover's side. It was so sweet to think of him as all
her own.

It is the mistake other and older girls so often make. Even as she
prattled in her bliss, looking radiantly into the fond, soft brown eyes
that melted into hers, the summons of a rival claimant came swiftly
down the vale, and the sentry at the northward post and the loungers at
the lookouts were already screwing their eyelids into focus on the
little dust cloud popping up along the stream fringe of willow. Two
couriers came presently jogging into view, and before the general sat
in the famous butler's pantry chair at the family table, he had told
the contents of two despatches from the Gray Fox in the field, and
decided for the moment to say nothing of the third. With the first and
second, reporting progress and enclosing despatches to be forwarded to
Prescott, we have nothing to do. With the last we may feel less concern
than did they. Mrs. Archer, scanning the clear-cut face of her soldier
lord, as he came within range of the hallway lamp, knew perfectly well
he had something to conceal, and with never an instant's doubt or
hesitation set herself to aid him. Without her tact and skill that
little dinner of four, the last they were to know in many a day, would
have been a sorrowful feast, for Archer was sore troubled in spirit.
Not until an hour later could she get him to herself, leaving Lilian
and her handsome Harold to bill and coo unsupervised, and then she only
smiled bravely up into his face and said, "Now tell me, dear."

"It's that--that fool despatch I wrote about Harris coming like a
curse, and chickens, home to roost." His hands were tremulous, his lips
were twitching as he took from its envelope and unfolded a letter in
the well-known hand of the field commander's favorite aide-de