ny summer evenings which followed, I played the part of that
broken soldier, who, as Mr. Goldsmith tells us so delightfully,

"talked the night away,
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won."

Alas, I could show not how they were won, but only how they were lost,
and how was one to clothe in romance a battle which had been fought in
the midst of mud and rain, from behind a breastwork, and with scarce a
glimpse of the enemy? But I had a rapt audience of two in James and
Dorothy. They were not critical, and I told the story of Great Meadows
over and over again, a score of times.

A hundred yards from the house, overlooking on one side the willow-draped
waters of Occoquan Inlet, and on the other the broad and placid river, a
seat had been fashioned between two massive oaks, and here, of an
evening, it was our wont to go. Sometimes, by great good fortune, James
did not accompany us, and Dorothy and I would sit there alone together
and watch the shadows deepen across the water. Our talk would falter and
die away before the beauty of the scene, and there would be long
silences, broken only now and then by a half whispered sentence. I had
never known a sweeter time, and even yet, when night is coming on, I love
to steal forth to sit there again and gaze across the water and dream
upon the past.

During the day, I saw but little of the other members of the family, and
was left greatly to my own resources. My aunt was ever busy with the
management of the estate, to every detail of which she gave personal
attention, and which she administered with a thrift and thoroughness I
could not but admire. The worry of incessant business left its mark upon
her. The lines in her face deepened, and the silver in her hair grew more
pronounced, but though she doubtless felt her strength failing, she clung
grimly to the work. I would have offered to assist her but that I knew
she would resent the suggestion, and would believe I made it to gain some
knowledge of the income from the estate, of which I had always been kept
in densest ignorance, and with which, indeed, I troubled myself but
little. I think her old fear of my claiming the place came on her again,
and though she always tried to treat me civilly, the effort in the end
proved too great for her overwrought nerves, as you shall presently hear.

Upon Dorothy fell the duty of looking after the household, and she went
about i