escott and all the soldiers took off their caps
and bowed, a courtesy which the haughty old maid ignored without rising.

"Miss Grayson," said Talbot humbly, "we have come to search your house."

"To search it for what?" she asked icily.

"A Northern spy."

"A fine duty for a Southern gentleman," she said.

Talbot flushed red.

"Miss Grayson," he said, "this is more painful to me than it is to you.
You are a well-known Northern sympathizer and I am compelled to do it.
It is no choice of mine."

Prescott noticed that Talbot refrained from asking her if she had any
spy hidden in the house, not putting her word to the proof, and mentally
he thanked him. "You are a real Southern gentleman," he thought.

Miss Grayson remained resolutely in her chair and stared steadily into
the fire, ignoring the search, after her short and sharp talk with
Talbot, who took his soldiers into the other rooms, glad to get out of
her presence. Prescott lingered behind, anxious to catch the eye of Miss
Grayson and to have a word with her, but she ignored him as pointedly as
she had ignored Talbot, though he walked heavily about, making his boots
clatter on the floor. Still that terrifying old maid stared into the
fire, as if she were bent upon watching every flickering flame and
counting every coal.

Her silence at last grew so ominous and weighed so heavily upon
Prescott's spirits that he fled from the room and joined Talbot, who
growled and asked him why he had not come sooner, saying: "A real friend
would stay with me and share all that's disagreeable."

Prescott wondered what the two women would say of him when they found
Miss Catherwood, but he was glad afterward to remember that his chief
feeling was for Miss Catherwood and not for himself. He expected every
moment that they would find her, and it was hard to keep his heart from
jumping. He looked at every chair and table and sofa, dreading lest he
should see the famous brown cloak lying there.

It was a small house with not many rooms, and the search took but a
short time. They passed from one to another seeing nothing suspicious,
and came to the last. "She is here," thought Prescott, "fleeing like a
hunted hare to the final covert." But she was not there--and it was
evident that she was not in the house at all. It was impossible for one
in so small a space to have eluded the searchers. Talbot heaved a sigh
of relief, and Prescott felt as if he could imitate him.

"A nasty jo