ers to be written owing to his having left in such haste,
that it was impossible for him to leave camp. He begged her to say
good-by for him to Miss Loomis, whom he sincerely hoped he might meet
again, and with his best wishes for the captain's speedy recovery and
restoration to duty, he begged to subscribe himself her friend and most
obedient servant.

"Now, I like that young fellow," said Mrs. Cranston, folding up the
letter, "only I didn't----"

"Well, didn't what?" asked her companion, seeing that she had faltered
for a word.

"Well--he didn't act at all like an engaged man,--like he ought to have
acted," said Mrs. Cranston, with honest disdain of masculine flirts or
malevolent rules of speech, due perhaps to long association with belles
of the Blue Grass country.

"Why, I didn't think he was engaged," said Miss Loomis.

"No,--and he didn't mean you to. But when one mail brings a man seven
letters from one girl, I've no use for him."

"Well, I should much rather he had them of one than from seven different
girls," said Miss Loomis, smiling resolutely.

"Oh, you're bound to uphold him, I see. All the same, I thought better
of him."

"Ah?" And now in a very pretty, playful way did Miss Loomis take her
companion's flushed face between two long, white, slender hands,--very
cool and dainty members were they,--and archly queried, "Are you
beginning to tire of your bargain, Lady Cranston? Are you planning
already to unload me, as the captain says, on somebody else?"

The answer came with sudden vehemence and a hug. "You are much too good
for any man I know,--except Will, and you can't have him. And I'll never
let you go till the right one comes."

After which outburst, and for over a week, did this young matron say
little more to Miss Loomis on the subject, but she must have enlivened
some hours of the captain's convalescence with her views on recent
graduates in general, and this one in particular, for when at last
letters came from the front announcing the arrival of the reinforcements
and the final cutting loose of the reorganized column from its base, the
prostrate warrior glanced up at his busy wife with an odd mixture of
merriment and concern in his haggard face.

"To whose troop do you suppose your friend Davies has been assigned?"

"Not to yours, surely. You have no vacancy."

"No. I fear I wish I had,--every time I see my bulky senior sub in
saddle. But, of all men you know----"

"Will Cranston!