em_,'cept ter git
out o' thar way; an' nobody keers fur _them_, but kase Jesus _is_ Gawd
He makes _somebody_ remember them wunst in a while! An' they did seem
passable glad."

A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle
distillation of asters or jewel-weed or "mountain-snow," and the leafage
of crimson sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late
ripening frost-grapes--all in the culmination of autumnal perfection;
more than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue
and roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief
truce stilled the guerilla's tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand
beside his horse's head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle
blanket.

Suddenly he spoke to an unexpected intent. "Ye took a power o' risk in
goin' nigh that Confederate pest-camp--an' yit ye're fur the Union an'
saved a squadron from capture!" he upbraided the inconsistency in a soft
incidental drawl.

"Yes, I be fur the Union," she trembled forth the dread avowal. "But
somehows I can't keep from holpin' any I kin. They war rebs--an' it war
Yankee coffee--an' I dun'no'--I jes' dun'no'----"

As she hesitated he looked long at her with that untranslated gaze. Then
he fell ponderingly silent.

Perhaps the revelation of the sanctities of a sweet humanity for a holy
sake, blessing and blessed, had illumined his path, had lifted his eyes,
had wrought a change in his moral atmosphere spiritually suffusive,
potent, revivifying, complete. "She is as good as the saints in the
Bible--an' plumb beautiful besides," he muttered beneath his fierce
mustachios.

Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.

"I expect to do some courtin' in this kentry when the war is over," the
guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. "I haven't
got time now. Will _you_ be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove--if I
promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?" He glanced up
with a sudden arch jocularity.

She burst out laughing gleefuly in the tumult of her joyous reassurance,
as she laid her tremulous fingers in his big gauntlet when he insisted
that they should shake hands as on a solemn compact. Forthwith he
mounted again, and the great charger galloped back, carrying double, in
the red after-glow of the sunset, to the waiting group before the
flaring doors of the forge.

The fine flower of romance had blossomed incongruously in that eager
heart in