rth, composed of the blue gown, the
slippers, and the pink rose, and watching the flame as it did its work.
"So perish also the enemies of my country!" she said to herself. (She
did not mean exactly that they should be burned on funeral pyres, but
merely consigned them on this, as on all occasions, to a general
perdition.) The old dress was but a rag, and the slippers were
worthless; but, had they been new and costly, she would have done the
same. Had they not been desecrated? Let them die!

It was, of course, proper that the guests should call at Gardiston House
within a day or two; and Roger Saxton, ignoring the coldness of his
reception, came again and again. He even sought out Cousin Copeland in
his study, and won the heart of the old bachelor by listening a whole
morning to extracts from the documents. Gardis found that her reserve
was of no avail against this bold young soldier, who followed her into
all her little retreats, and paid no attention to her stinging little
speeches. Emboldened and also angered by what she deemed his
callousness, she every day grew more and more open in her tone, until
you might have said that she, as a unit, poured out upon his head the
whole bitterness of the South. Saxton made no answer until the time came
for the camp to break up, the soldiers being ordered back to the city.
Then he came to see her one afternoon, and sat for some time in
silence; the conversation of the little mistress was the same as usual.

"I forgive this, and all the bitter things you have said to me, Gardis,"
he remarked abruptly.

"Forgive! And by what right, sir--"

"Only this: I love you, dear." And then he poured out all the tide of
his young ardor, and laid his heart and his life at her feet.

But the young girl, drawing her slight figure up to its full height,
dismissed him with haughty composure. She no longer spoke angrily, but
simply said, "That you, a Northerner and a soldier, should presume to
ask for the hand of a Southern lady, shows, sir, that you have not the
least comprehension of us or of our country." Then she made him a
courtesy and left the room. The transformation was complete; it was no
longer the hot-tempered girl flashing out in biting little speeches, but
the woman uttering the belief of her life. Saxton rode off into town
that same night, dejected and forlorn.

Captain Newell took his leave a day later in a different fashion; he
told Miss Duke that he would leave a guard on the