neither love itself nor thoughts of home, except in the minds
of the wounded and dying that were borne below, could find a place.

CHAPTER III.

AN INTERRUPTED PROPOSAL.

"None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair,
But love can hope when reason would despair."

Perhaps never was youthful maiden less prepared to listen to the
addresses of a would-be wooer than was Gerty Keane when she entered the
tartan boudoir that evening at Grantley Hall. She was little more than a
child even now, only lately turned seventeen; and before Jack went away
to sea--now two years and a month ago--I believe that most of the
love-making between them had been conducted through the media of
bon-bons and an occasional wild flower, though it ended with farewell
tears, a lock of bonnie hair, and a miniature, both of which Jack had
taken away with him, and, like a true lover, worn next his heart ever
since the parting.

Gerty's cheeks were flushed to-night, her eyes shone, her very lips were
rosier than usual.

Sir Digby Auld sprang up as nimbly as his figure would permit, and
advanced to meet the girl with outstretched hands. The baronet was
verging on forty, but dressed in the height of youthful fashion; he was
a trifle pompous, and he was likewise a trifle podgy.

As a shopkeeper or clerk there would have been nothing very attractive
about Digby, but as a baronet he was somewhat of a success. There was
nothing, however, in his fair, soft, round face or washed-out blue eyes
calculated to influence the tender passion in one of the opposite sex;
only he was excessively good-natured, and it is very nice of a baronet
to be excessively good-natured and condescending, especially when
everybody knows he may become a lord as soon as another noble lord
chooses to die. Everybody knew also of Sir Digby's passion for Gerty
Keane, and for this very reason used to say sneering and ill-natured
things behind the baronet's back; for people were not a whit better in
those "good old times" than they are now.

Whenever Sir Digby sailed into a drawing-room that happened to possess a
sprinkling of marriageable girls of various ages, from sixteen to--say
sixty, he sailed into an ocean of smiles; but if Gerty were there, he
appeared to notice no one else in the room. Whenever Sir Digby sailed
out again, their tongues began to wag, both male and female tongues, but
particularly the latter.

But on the particular evening when Sir Digby A