Colonel Pegram comes, you must take down that picture and hide it."

Barbara started and blushed.

"What do you know, Sir, of Colonel Pegram?"

"Nothing, except that he is a fortunate man, unless Rumor belies him."

"If you refer, Sir, to that foolish report in regard to myself which was
current last winter, I beg to assure you there is no truth in it."

"Not _now_, perhaps."

"_Never_ shall it be true!" exclaimed Barbara, starting up and pacing
the floor.

"Excuse me," said the Captain, also rising,--"excuse me, if I have been
impertinent on so slight an acquaintance."

He had his hat in his hand, and walked towards the door.

"Deuse take the fellow! can't he stay patiently here five minutes?"
thought Barbara. She dropped the rose she had been holding. The Captain
picked it up and offered it.

"Keep it, Sir, if you think it worth while," said Barbara,--driven to
this incipient impropriety by the vague apprehensions excited by her
father's letter.

"Thank you," replied the Captain, so taken by surprise that he forgot
his military laurels, and showed a faint heart by a blush.

Barbara esteemed it a very charming symptom; and as the Captain, with
his one unwounded arm, tried rather awkwardly to put the flower in the
buttonhole of his waistcoat, she stepped up with a "Let me aid you";
and, taking from her own dress a pin, fastened the rose nicely as near
as she could to the beating heart of the imperilled soldier. Alas! if
his thoughts had been put into words, he would have soliloquized, "Look
here, Captain, I'm afraid you are deporting yourself very much like a
simpleton. Pluck up a spirit, man!"

"There! I'm sure 't is very becoming," quoth Barbara, mischievously.

"You see how convenient it is to have two hands," returned the Captain.
"And your having two hands, Miss Dinwiddie, reminds me that your piano
stands open, showing its teeth, as if it, smiling, wanted to say, 'Come,
play on me.'"

"What a lucky idea!" thought Barbara. "Now I have him, and will hold
him. He shall get enough of it. When will pa come, I wonder?--Are you
fond of music, Captain Penrose?"

"Yes; I used to be a performer before I was disabled."

"But your voice is not disabled. You sing?"

"A little; but I'm out of practice."

"No matter. Come! Here's a martial piece, suitable for the times: 'To
Greece we give our shining blades.'"

It was one of the Captain's favorites; and as the two voices, resonant
and penetrating, rose