hearing before he said:

"Do you like that man, Miss Catherwood?"

"I do not know. Why?"

"You were in such close and long conversation that you seemed to be old
friends."

"There were reasons for what we said."

She looked at him so frankly that he was ashamed, but she, recognizing
his tone and the sharpness of it, was not displeased. On the contrary,
she felt a warm glow, and the woman in her urged her to go further. She
spoke well of the Secretary, his penetrating foresight and his knowledge
of the world and its people--men, women and children. Prescott listened
in a somewhat sulky mood, and she, regarding him with covert glances,
was roused to a singular lightness that she had not known for many days.
Then she changed, showing him her softer side, for she could be as
feminine as any other woman, not less so than Helen Harley, and she
would prove it to him. Becoming all sunshine with just enough shadow to
deepen the colours, she spoke of a time when the war should have
passed--when the glory of this world with the green of spring and the
pink of summer should return. Her moods were so many and so variable,
but all so gay, that Prescott began to share her spirits, and although
they were retreating from a lost field and the cannon still muttered
behind them, he forgot the war and remembered only this girl beside him,
who walked with such easy grace and saw so bright an outlook.

Thus the retreat continued. The able-bodied soldiers of the brigade were
drafted away, but the women and wounded men went on. Grant never ceased
his hammer strokes, and it was necessary for the Southern leaders to get
rid of all superfluous baggage. Prescott, singularly enough, found
himself in command of this little column that marched southward, taking
the place of his friend Talbot, lost in a mysterious way to the regret
of all.

Mr. Sefton left them the day after his talk with Lucia, and Prescott was
not sorry to see him go, for some of his uneasiness departed with him.
Harley, vain, fretful and complaining, gave much trouble, yielding only
to the influence of Mrs. Markham, with whom Prescott did not like to see
him, but was helpless in the matter. Helen and Lucia were the most
obedient of soldiers and gave no trouble at all. Helen, a warm partisan,
seemed to think little of the great campaign that was going on behind
her, and to concern herself more about something else. Yet she was not
unhappy--even Prescott could see it--and the