at work again with more ardor than
ever.

"Cousin Copeland," said Gardis, appearing at the door of the study, "I
have decided at last to yield to your wishes, and--and invite the
officers to dinner."

"By all means," said Cousin Copeland, putting down his pen and waving
his hands with a hearty little air of acquiescence--"by all means." It
was not until long afterward that he remembered he had never expressed
any wish upon the subject whatever. But it suited Gardis to imagine that
he had done so; so she imagined it.

"We have little to work with," continued the little mistress of the
house; "but Dinah is an excellent cook, and--and--O cousin, I do not
wish to do it; I can not bear the mere thought of it; but oh! we must,
we must." Tears stood in her eyes as she concluded.

"They are going soon," suggested Cousin Copeland, hesitatingly, biting
the end of his quill.

"That is the very reason. They are going soon, and we have done nothing
to acknowledge their aid, their courtesy--we Gardistons, both of us.
They have saved our home, perhaps our lives; and we--we let them go
without a word! O cousin, it must not be. Something we must do;
_noblesse oblige!_ I have thought and thought, and really there is
nothing but this: we must invite them to dinner," said Miss Duke,
tragically.

"I--I always liked little dinners," said Cousin Copeland, in a gentle,
assenting murmur.

Thus it happened that the officers received two formal little notes with
the compliments of Miss Gardiston Duke inclosed, and an invitation to
dinner. "Hurrah!" cried Saxton. "At last!"

The day appointed was at the end of the next week; Gardis had decided
that that would be more ceremonious. "And they are to understand," she
said proudly, "that it is a mere dinner of ceremony, and not of
friendship."

"Certainly," said Cousin Copeland.

Old Dinah was delighted. Gardis brought out some of the half-year rent
money, and a dinner was planned, of few dishes truly, but each would be
a marvel of good cooking, as the old family servants of the South used
to cook when time was nothing to them. It is not much to them now; but
they have heard that it ought to be, and that troubles the perfection of
their pie-crust. There was a little wine left in the wine-room--a queer
little recess like a secret chamber; and there was always the crocodile
china and the few pieces of cut glass. The four forks would be enough,
and Gardis would take no jelly, so that the spo