s nearly forty. He had
kept his uniform, and his wife persuaded him to be painted in it."

"If Stephen would only come as Colonel Wilton Brice!" she cried. "Do you
think he would, Mrs. Brice?"

Mrs. Brice laughed, and shook her head.

"I am afraid not, Anne," she said. "I have a part of the uniform
upstairs, but I could never induce him even to try it on."

As she drove from shop to shop that day, Anne reflected that it
certainly would not be like Stephen to wear his grandfather's uniform to
a ball. But she meant to ask him, at any rate. And she had driven home
immediately to write her invitations. It was with keen disappointment
that she read his note of regret.

However, on the very day of the ball, Anne chanced to be in town again,
and caught sight of Stephen pushing his way among the people on Fourth
Street. She waved her hand to him, and called to Nicodemus to pull up at
the sidewalk.

"We are all so sorry that you are not coming," said she, impulsively.
And there she stopped short. For Anne was a sincere person, and
remembered Virginia. "That is, I am so sorry," she added, a little
hastily. "Stephen, I saw the portrait of your grandfather, and I wanted
you to come in his costume."

Stephen, smiling down on her, said nothing. And poor Anne, in her fear
that he had perceived the shade in her meaning, made another unfortunate
remark.

"If you were not a--a Republican--" she said.

"A Black Republican," he answered, and laughed at her discomfiture.
"What then?"

Anne was very red.

"I only meant that if you were not a Republican, there would be no
meeting to address that night."

"It does not make any difference to you what my politics are, does it?"
he asked, a little earnestly.

"Oh, Stephen!" she exclaimed, in gentle reproof.

"Some people have discarded me," he said, striving to smile.

She wondered whether he meant Virginia, and whether he cared. Still
further embarrassed, she said something which she regretted immediately.

"Couldn't you contrive to come?"

He considered.

"I will come, after the meeting, if it is not too late," he said at
length. "But you must not tell any one."

He lifted his hat, and hurried on, leaving Anne in a quandary. She
wanted him. But what was she to say to Virginia? Virginia was coming on
the condition that he was not to be there. And Anne was scrupulous.

Stephen, too, was almost instantly sorry that he had promised. The
little costumer's shop (the only on