s.

The glimmer of a smile crossed the face of the younger officer, but the
other remained unmoved.

"My name, madam, is Newell--David Newell, captain commanding the company
that will be encamped here. I beg you to send me word immediately if
anything occurs to disturb your quiet," he said.

Then the two saluted the little mistress with formal courtesy, and
departed, walking down the path together with a quick step and soldierly
bearing, as though they were on parade.

"Ought I to have asked them in?" thought Gardis; and she went slowly up
to the drawing-room again and closed the piano. "I wonder who said
'bravo'? The younger one, I presume." And she presumed correctly.

At lunch (corn-bread and milk) Cousin Copeland's old-young face appeared
promptly at the dining-room door. Cousin Copeland, Miss Margaretta's
cousin, was a little old bachelor, whose thin dark hair had not turned
gray, and whose small bright eyes needed no spectacles; he dressed
always in black, with low shoes on his small feet, and his clothes
seemed never to wear out, perhaps because his little frame hardly
touched them anywhere; the cloth certainly was not strained. Everything
he wore was so old-fashioned, however, that he looked like the pictures
of the high-collared, solemn little men who, accompanied by ladies all
bonnet, are depicted in English Sunday-school books following funeral
processions, generally of the good children who die young.

"O Cousin Copeland, where were you this morning when I went up to your
study?" began Gardis, full of the event of the morning.

"You may well ask where I was, my child," replied the bachelor, cutting
his toasted corn-bread into squares with mathematical precision. "A most
interesting discovery--most interesting. Not being thoroughly satisfied
as to the exact identity of the first wife of one of the second cousins
of our grandfather, a lady who died young and left no descendants, yet
none the less a Gardiston, at least by marriage, the happy idea occurred
to me to investigate more fully the contents of the papers in barrel
number two on the east side of the central garret--documents that I
myself classified in 1849, as collateral merely, not relating to the
main line. I assure you, my child, that I have spent there, over that
barrel, a most delightful morning--most delightful. I had not realized
that there was so much interesting matter in store for me when I shall
have finished the main line, which will