re of your attention than the more amenable
Virginia ladies."

"Well, isn't it a sad enough sight to see any lady going cracked?"
retorted the General, hotly; "do you know, George, that Sally
Mickleborough--he says he's sure it's Sally Mickleborough--has promised
to marry Ben Starr?"

"Oh, it's Sally all right," responded George, "she has just told me."

He came over and held out his hand, smiling pleasantly, though there was
a hurt look in his eyes.

"I congratulate you, Ben," he observed in his easy, good-natured way,
"the best man comes in ahead."

His face wore the frown, not from temper, but from pain, that I had seen
on it at the club when his favourite hunter had dropped dead, and he had
tried to appear indifferent. He was a superb horseman, a typical man
about town, a bit of a sport, also, as Dr. Theophilus said. I knew he
loved Sally, just as I had known he loved his hunter, by a sympathetic
reading of his character rather than by any expression of regret on his
long, highly coloured, slightly wooden countenance, with its set mouth
over which drooped a mustache so carefully trimmed that it looked almost
as if it were glued on his upper lip.

"By the way, uncle, have you heard the last news?" he asked, "Barclay is
buying all the A. P. & C. Stock he can lay hands on. It's selling at--"

"Hello! What's that? Barclay, did you say? I knew it was coming, and
that he'd spring it. Here, Hatty, give me my cape, I'm going back to the
office!"

"George, George, the doctor told you not to excite yourself,"
remonstrated Miss Hatty, appearing in the doorway with a glass of
medicine in her hand.

"Excite myself? Pish! Tush!" retorted the General, "I ain't a bit more
excited than you are yourself. Do you think if I hadn't had a cool head
they'd have made me president of the South Midland? But I tell you
Barclay's trying to get control of the A. P. & C., and I'll be blamed if
he shall! Do you want him to snatch a railroad out of my very mouth,
madam?"

By this time he had got into his cape and slouch hat, turning at the
last moment to swallow Miss Hatty's dose of medicine with a wry mouth.
Then with one arm in George's and one in mine, he descended the steps
and limped as far as the car line on Main Street.

On that same afternoon I walked out to meet Sally on her ride in one of
the country roads to what was called "the Pump House," and when she had
dismounted, we strolled together along the little path under the