at he owed his eyes to her, but felt that she knew better and
would be more offended than pleased.

He was to sail on the morrow, and he had not even seen her brother
again.

But the department commander had said he purposed coming out with a
party of friends to run alongside the flag-ship as she steamed slowly
out to sea, and that was why Mr. Stuyvesant stood so eagerly watching
the ploughing side-wheeler so swiftly coming in pursuit. Already he had
made out the double stars in the bunting at the jack-staff. Already he
could distinguish the forms of several general officers whose commands
were not yet ready for embarkation and the fluttering garments of a
score of women.

Something told him she would be of the party, and as the Vanguard slowed
down to let the head-quarters' boat run alongside, his heart beat
eagerly when his general said: "We'll go down, gentlemen, and board her.
It'll be much easier than the climb would be to them."

So it happened that five minutes later he found himself at the heels of
his chief shaking hands mechanically with a dozen officers, while his
eyes kept peering beyond them to where, on the after-deck, the smiling
group of women stood expectant.

And presently the general pushed on for a word of farewell with them,
the aides obediently following, and then came more presentations to
cordial and kindly people whose names he did not even hear, for just a
little farther on, and still surrounded by cavaliers, stood Mrs. Ray,
the handsomest and most distinguished-looking woman of the party, and
close beside her, _petite_ and graceful, her dark beauty even the more
noticeable in contrast with the fair features of her mother, stood
Maidie. And then at last it came, the simple words that threw down the
social barrier that so long had balked him.

"My aide-de-camp, Mr. Stuyvesant, Mrs. Ray,--Miss Ray," and with his
soul in his eyes he looked down into that radiant face, smiling so
cordially, unconstrainedly into his, and then found himself striving to
recall what on earth it was he was so anxious to say.

He knew that he was flushing to the peak of his forage-cap. He knew he
was trying to stammer something. He saw that she was perfectly placid
and at her ease. He saw, worse luck, that she wore a little knot of
roses on the breast of her natty jacket, but that they were not his. He
faltered something to the effect that he had been trying to see her ever
since the night of the fire--had so muc