e on her features.

"The bugle I will certainly take," added Henry; "because it might be
useful in case we got separated; and I will teach you to understand my
signals. Isaac shall carry horse-pistols on his saddle, and the
sergeant shall have a great wallet of provisions. You see I understand
campaigning, Mildred. And now," added the eager young soldier, as he
left the apartment, "hurra for the volunteers of the Dove Cote!"

CHAPTER XXXIX.

MILDRED BEGINS HER JOURNEY.

The man who writes the history of woman's love will find himself
employed in drawing out a tangled skein. It is a history of secret
emotions and vivid contrasts, which may well go nigh to baffle his
penetration and to puzzle his philosophy. There is in it a surface of
timid and gentle bashfulness concealing an underflow of strong and heady
passion: a seeming caprice that a breath may shake or a word alarm; yet,
all the while, an earnest devotion of soul which, in its excited action,
holds all danger cheap that crosses the path of its career. The
sportive, changeful, and coward nature that dallies with affection as a
jest, and wins admiration by its affrighted coyness; that flies and
would be followed; that revolts and would be soothed, entreated, and on
bended knee implored, before it is won; that same nature will undergo
the ordeal of the burning ploughshare, take all the extremes of misery
and distress, brave the fury of the elements and the wrath of man, and
in every peril be a patient comforter, when the cause that moves her is
the vindication of her love. Affection is to her what glory is to man,
an impulse that inspires the most adventurous heroism.

There had been for some days past in Mildred's mind an anxious misgiving
of misfortune to Butler, which was but ill concealed in a quiet and
reserved demeanor. The argument of his safety seemed to have little to
rest upon, and she could perceive that it was not believed by those who
uttered it. There rose upon her thoughts imaginings or presentiments of
ill, which she did not like to dwell upon, but which she could not
banish. And now when Horse Shoe had told his tale, the incidents did not
seem to warrant the levity with which he passed them by. She was afraid
to express her doubts: and they brooded upon her mind, hatching pain and
secret grief. It was almost an instinct, therefore, that directed her
resolve, when she announced her determination to go in person in quest
of Cornwallis, and