ss unusual in him he went indoors. No light
was in the lower rooms, his father, Mrs. Garland, and Anne having gone
out on the bridge to look at the new moon. John went upstairs on tip-
toe, and along the uneven passage till he came to her door. It was
standing ajar, a band of candlelight shining across the passage and up
the opposite wall. As soon as he entered the radiance he saw her. She
was standing before the looking-glass, apparently lost in thought, her
fingers being clasped behind her head in abstraction, and the light
falling full upon her face.

'I must speak to you,' said the trumpet-major.

She started, turned and grew paler than before; and then, as if moved by
a sudden impulse, she swung the door wide open, and, coming out, said
quite collectedly and with apparent pleasantness, 'O yes; you are my
Bob's brother! I didn't, for a moment, recognize you.'

'But you do now?'

'As Bob's brother.'

'You have not seen me before?'

'I have not,' she answered, with a face as impassible as Talleyrand's.

'Good God!'

'I have not!' she repeated.

'Nor any of the --th Dragoons? Captain Jolly, for instance?'

'No.'

'You mistake. I'll remind you of particulars,' he said drily. And he
did remind her at some length.

'Never!' she said desperately.

But she had miscalculated her staying powers, and her adversary's
character. Five minutes after that she was in tears, and the
conversation had resolved itself into words, which, on the soldier's
part, were of the nature of commands, tempered by pity, and were a mere
series of entreaties on hers.

The whole scene did not last ten minutes. When it was over, the trumpet-
major walked from the doorway where they had been standing, and brushed
moisture from his eyes. Reaching a dark lumber-room, he stood still
there to calm himself, and then descended by a Flemish-ladder to the
bakehouse, instead of by the front stairs. He found that the others,
including Bob, had gathered in the parlour during his absence and lighted
the candles.

Miss Johnson, having sent down some time before John re-entered the house
to say that she would prefer to keep her room that evening, was not
expected to join them, and on this account Bob showed less than his
customary liveliness. The miller wishing to keep up his son's spirits,
expressed his regret that, it being Sunday night, they could have no
songs to make the evening cheerful; when Mrs. Garland proposed that they
sh