liked to meet us at the railway station, but Di
had plenty of excuses for not allowing that. He had met Mrs. Main,
however, and in the afternoon he called. Father was out prospering round
the little town, and visiting the smart club at which he had been put up
as an honorary member. Di and our hostess (she made us call her Kitty, a
sprightly name to which she struggled to live up to) were in the garden
when Eagle came, but I happened to be in the drawing-room with a book,
so I had about five minutes alone with him before Mrs. Main's black
butler found the others.

I hadn't tried, as a well-regulated young girl would no doubt have
tried, to "get over" being in love with Captain March. I had just simply
said to myself that the kind of unhappiness which loving him made me
suffer was better than any little wretched pretence at half-baked
happiness I could hope for by putting him out of my mind. So I had
basked in the painful luxury of thinking about him constantly, and
dreaming dreams of how I might serve or sacrifice myself for him, and
win his passionate gratitude. Consequently, when I raised my eyes from
the Spanish novel I wanted to translate, and saw Eagle March come in at
the door, I loved him a thousand times more than ever. I don't know if
an unprejudiced person would call him actually handsome; but I thought
there couldn't be on earth a man worth comparing with that brown-faced
soldier.

He was glad to meet his "dear little pal" again, because of what he
could get out of her about his loved one. He did hold back his eagerness
long enough to rattle off, "Why, Peggy, you're growing up! By Jove,
you're almost a woman, aren't you? and a pretty one, too--though you've
kept your impish look, I'm glad to see!" But that was only the preface.
As soon as he decently could, he turned the conversation to Diana. How
was she? As beautiful as ever? Though of course she was! Did she ever
speak of him? He'd passed sleepless nights after reading newspaper
paragraphs which reported her on the eve of an engagement with this man
or that--disgustingly rich, overfed brutes. Was there a grain of truth
in any of the reports? No? Thank heaven! Well, then, perhaps there was a
sporting chance for him after all!

"But, just like my luck," he went on, half laughing, "there's
a chap here who's as formidable as any of them. A regular
twelve-and-a-half-inch gun, latest make and improvements; his name's
Vandyke; only a major; all the same he's g