nounced his engagement upon the day after his enlistment, and
recounted to all who would listen how his termagant fell upon his neck
in tears when she heard the news. "And now she cries about me all the
time," finished the frank Jean blithely.

But there was little spirit for the old merriments: there were no more
carpet-dances at the Bareauds', no masquerades at the Madrillons', no
picnics in the woods nor excursions on the river; and no more did light
feet bear light hearts through the "mazes of the intricate schottische,
the subtle mazourka, or the stately quadrille," as Will Cummings
remarked in the Journal. Fanchon, Virginia, and five or six others,
spent their afternoons mournfully, and yet proudly, sewing and cutting
large pieces of colored silk, fashioning a great flag for their
sweethearts and brothers to bear southward and plant where stood the
palace of the Montezumas.

That was sad work for Fanchon, though it was not for her brother's sake
that she wept, since, as everyone knew, Jefferson was already so full
of malaria and quinine that the fevers of the South and Mexico must find
him invulnerable, and even his mother believed he would only thrive
and grow hearty on his soldiering. But about Crailey, Fanchon had a
presentiment more vivid than any born of the natural fears for his
safety; it came to her again and again, reappearing in her dreams; she
shivered and started often as she worked on the flag, then bent her
fair head low over the gay silks, while the others glanced at her
sympathetically. She had come to feel quite sure that Crailey was to be
shot.

"But I've dreamed it--dreamed it six!" she cried, when he laughed,
at her and tried to cheer her. "And it comes to me in the day-time
as though I saw it with my eyes: the picture of you in an officer's
uniform, lying on the fresh, green grass, and a red stain just below the
throat."

"That shows what dreams are made of, dear lady," he smiled. "We'll find
little green grass in Mexico, and I'm only a corporal; so where's the
officer's uniform?"

Then Fanchon wept the more, and put her arms about him, while it seemed
to her that she must cling to him so forever and thus withhold him from
fulfilling her vision, and that the gentle pressure of her arms must
somehow preserve him to life and to her. "Ah, you can't go, darling,"
she sobbed, while he petted her and tried to soothe her. "You can't
leave me! You belong to me! They can't, can't, can't take you