her head approvingly; the patriarch stroked his
beard with acquiescence and strong men clenched their fists as the
spokesman mouthed their real or fancied wrongs. It was an earnest,
implacable crowd; men with lowering brows merely glanced at the
soldier as he rode forward; women gazed more intently, but were
quickly lured back by the tripping phrases of the mellifluous
speaker.

On the outskirts of the gathering, near the road, stood a tall,
beetling individual whom Saint-Prosper addressed, reining in his horse
near the wooden rail, which answered for a fence.

"Dinna ye ken I'm listening?" impatiently retorted the other, with a
fierce frown. "Gang your way, mon," he added, churlishly, as he turned
his back.

Judging from the wrathful faces directed toward him, the lease-holders
esteemed Saint-Prosper a political disturber, affiliating with the
other faction of the Democratic party, and bent, perhaps, on creating
dissension at the tenants' camp-fire. The soldier's impatience and
anger were ready to leap forth at a word; he wheeled fiercely upon the
weedy Scot, to demand peremptorily the information so uncivilly
withheld, when a gust of wind blowing something light down the road
caused his horse to shy suddenly and the rider to glance at what had
frightened the animal. After a brief scrutiny, he dismounted quickly
and examined more attentively the object,--a pamphlet with a red
cover, upon which appeared the printed design of the conventional
Greek masks of Tragedy and Comedy, and beneath, the title, "The
Honeymoon." The bright binding, albeit soiled by the dusty road, and
the fluttering of the leaves in the breeze had startled the horse and
incidentally attracted the attention of his master. Across the somber
mask of melancholy was traced in buoyant hand the name of the young
actress.

But the soldier needed not the confirmation, for had he not noticed
this same prompt book in her lap on the journey of the chariot? It was
a mute, but eloquent message. Could she have spoken more plainly if
she had written with ink and posted the missive with one of those new
bronze-hued portraits of Franklin, called stamps by the government and
"sticking plaster" by the people? Undoubtedly she had hoped the
manager was following her when she intrusted the message to that
erratic postman, Chance, who plied his vocation long before the black
Washington or the bronze Franklin was a talisman of more or less
uncertain delivery.

The