l, he was
deserving the soft impeachment. Gleason would gladly have assumed the
responsibility. For a whole day he was the hero, to many feminine minds,
of the serenades, and the recipient of a dozen warm invitations to come
and sing for them that evening; but before nightfall one theory received
a shock which was followed in an hour by another. The first was when
Mrs. Whaling placidly asserted that she knew all about the serenades.
That while the supposed unknown had honored Miss Sanford's window twice,
it was getting to be an old story at the colonel's, as the troubadour
had appeared under her Cecilia's window almost every night for--oh, she
didn't know how long. Cecilia had blushingly confessed that morning, and
she, Mrs. Whaling, had frequently heard his tinkling guitar and sweet
tenor at odd times. Now, among the infantry ladies it was an older story
that fair Cecilia had a way of arrogating to herself attentions never
intended for her, and of having a fertility of invention which enabled
her at a moment's notice to discount any story of devotions to another
girl with exuberant descriptions of others more intense of which she was
the prior object. Any statement of her sainted child was promptly backed
by her adoring mother, and, well, there was disbelief, not loud but
deep, of this statement among the infantry ladies. As for "ours,"--Mrs.
Stannard listened in silence but with glistening eyes; Mrs. Truscott and
Miss Sanford with evident relief; Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Wilkins with
exclamatory interest.

The second shock came when a party of ladies, Miss Cecilia Whaling being
of the number, alluded to Mr. Gleason as the probable Manrico, and this
for the purpose of "drawing out" Mrs. Turner. "Nonsense!" said Mrs.
Turner. "Mr. Gleason has no more voice than a frog. He thinks he can
sing, but--you just ought to hear him."

"Why, but, Mrs. _Turner_," said one of the fair advocates, eager to
sustain the theory she advanced, "Mr. Gleason as much as admitted that
he was the man."

"He? of course he would! Mr. Gleason imagines there is no accomplishment
he does not possess. If you need conviction ask him to sing."

Ah, me! And this was the same lady who so vehemently stood up for
Gleason in the days when he was her devotee--before she discovered that
poker had attractions for him before which her own could but "pale their
ineffectual fires. _Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?_"

If it wasn't Gleason, then, who was it? That