e been just about the time that he had
enlisted and marched away. He had gone without telling her perhaps;
she could have been little more than a child. Perhaps he had never told.
Or they might have had their brief tragic happiness upon the edge of
death, they two "embracing under death's spread hand."

He stared at the picture. It would have been easy to love a girl with
those eyes, that mouth. A fancy came upon him to put Uncle William's
picture beside the girl's, and impulsively he went back to the darkened
drawing-room, groped for the framed picture that stood upon the mantel,
found it, and carried it up to his room. Then side by side he studied
the two faces.

His imagination began to reconstruct their story. He wished that he
might learn more. He went back to the old desk. It might have been
his uncle's. He opened a drawer; it was empty. A second and a third;
the last contained some valueless miscellany, an old glass knob a faded
bit of worsted fringe, some papers. Poking under them, he actually found
a package of letters. He picked it up, and with a little thrill of
realization recognized his uncle's writing. The paper was old and
yellowed with time. It had no address, but was sealed with red wax.
Scarcely expecting fulfillment of his romantic hope, he broke the seal
and opened the package. There was no address on the first envelope. Some
business memorandum, no doubt; yet nothing surely that at this late day
he might not in honor examine. He drew out the closely written sheet and
turned it over. After all the years his eyes were surely the first to
read it. There was no name in the inscription. Uncle William's fine
writing was very legible.

II

July 15, 1863.

My little love with the smooth hair and the great eyes, you do not
know that I have the little daguerreotype next my heart. I stole it
from Lucretia, and packed it among my things. How often I shall take it
out in the long days ahead before the war is over and I can come back to
tell you that I love you. You will wait for me, sweetheart. No other man
shall be the one to make those clear eyes fall, to change them from a
child's to a woman's eyes. I can see you as you stood there beside the
sun-dial. "Fight a brave fight, William," you said, "and come back
soon." You were brave and glorious. Your eyes were not even wet, yet you
care enough for me to shed a tear. I know that, little Allison. We have
been such good comrades, you and I. I looked back a