uty full of subtle languor and indolent grace, she
was to Phil a revelation.

The coarse black dress that clung closely to her figure seemed alive when
she moved, vital with her beauty. The musical cadences of her voice were
vibrant with feeling, sweet, tender, and homelike. And the odour of the
rose she wore pinned low on her breast he could swear was the perfume of
her breath.

Lingering in her eyes and echoing in the tones of her voice, he caught the
shadowy memory of tears for the loved and lost that gave a strange pathos
and haunting charm to her youth.

She had returned quickly and was talking at ease with him.

"I'm not going to tell you, Captain Stoneman, that I hope to be a sister
to you. You have already made yourself my brother in what you did for
Ben."

"Nothing, I assure you, Miss Cameron, that any soldier wouldn't do for a
brave foe."

"Perhaps; but when the foe happens to be an only brother, my chum and
playmate, brave and generous, whom I've worshipped as my beau-ideal
man--why, you know I must thank you for taking him in your arms that day.
May I, again?"

Phil felt the soft warm hand clasp his, while the black eyes sparkled and
glowed their friendly message.

He murmured something incoherently, looked at Margaret as if in a spell,
and forgot to let her hand go.

She laughed at last, and he blushed and dropped it as though it were a
live coal.

"I was about to forget, Miss Cameron. I wish to take you to the theatre
to-night, if you will go?"

"To the theatre?"

"Yes. It's to be an occasion, Elsie tells me. Laura Keene's last
appearance in 'Our American Cousin,' and her one-thousandth performance of
the play. She played it in Chicago at McVicker's, when the President was
first nominated, to hundreds of the delegates who voted for him. He is to
be present to-night, so the _Evening Star_ has announced, and General and
Mrs. Grant with him. It will be the opportunity of your life to see these
famous men--besides, I wish you to see the city illuminated on the way."

Margaret hesitated.

"I should like to go," she said with some confusion. "But you see we are
old-fashioned Scotch Presbyterians down in our village in South Carolina.
I never was in a theatre--and this is Good Friday----"

"That's a fact, sure," said Phil thoughtfully. "It never occurred to me.
War is not exactly a spiritual stimulant, and it blurs the calendar. I
believe we fight on Sundays oftener than on any other day."