"Took it off and fired it while he was trying to shoot me?"

"Yes."

He seized both her hands and asked, "What will you take for that shoe?”

"What a Yankee you are to ask such a question! It wasn't a shoe; it was a slipper."

"Have you it on now?"

"Yes. What should you want of it?"

"I want to wear it next my heart. Which one was it? Let me see it."

66

"No; it's old. I haven't any other, and I shall wear it on my right foot as long as it lasts.”

"Please let me see it and take it in my hands just a I may never have a chance to ask another favor

moment.

of you."

66

"Oh, yes, you will. You are coming to see us, and the general has asked me to visit his daughter after the war is over. Do you think he'll remember it?"

"The slipper, please."

"How can you ask so absurd a thing?" and a dainty foot was put out a brief instant before him.

O you little Cinderella! I wish I was the Prince." He saw something like a frown gathering on her face. "Don't look that way," he resumed, "I want to tell you something I've read. I don't remember the words, but the gist is that a woman never forgets a man on whom she has bestowed a great kindness. Already I have twice owed my life to you. You can't forget me. My hope is in what you have done for me, not what I can do for you. I can think of myself lying dead in front of the house, I know I am standing here looking into your true, sweet eyes. Let me look into them a moment, for I have no sister, no mother, no one in the world that I care for like you. Do not think I am making

love. I may be dead yet before night. But whether I live or die I want you to remember that there is one human soul that always wishes you well for your own sake, that is wholly and unselfishly devoted to your interests and happiness.”

"There, I'm beginning to cry, and your dinner's getting cold. You must stop talking so."

"Give me something to carry into battle this afternoon." She stooped and gathered some wild violets. "There," she said.

"You could not have chosen better. Whenever I see violets hereafter they shall be your eyes looking at me as you are looking now."

"And well- you can remember that there is always a little friend in the South who does care. That's a curious thought about a woman's caring for those she has - I don't believe a woman can care for any one and not try to do something for him. Let us just think of ourselves as friends. It seems to me that I never want to think any other way. Now you must get your dinner. You may be summoned hastily and have no other chance to-day. After Uncle Lusthah's words last night I'm not going to have any forebodings."

"Won't you let me call you Miss Lou once before I go?" "Why not?"

"Well, then, Miss Lou, look in my eyes once more and remember what you see there. I won't say a word."

She raised hers shyly to his, blushed deeply and turned away, shaking her head. The power to divine what she saw was born with her.

"Yes, I understand you," he said very gently, "but you can't help it, any more than the sun's shining. Some day your heart may be cold and sad, and the memory of what you have just seen may warm and cheer it. Miss Lou, you brave, noble little child-woman, didn't you see that my love

was your servant— that it merely gives you power over me? Even as my wife you would be as free as I would be. Now good-by. We part here and not before others. Chunk is yonder with my horse. Be just as happy as you can whether we ever meet again or not."

"Then then if

you don't come again?" she faltered.

"I shall be dead, but don't believe this too hastily." "You've been kind," she burst out passionately, "you've treated me with respect, as if I had a right to myself. You have saved me from what I dreaded far worse than death. You shall not go away, perhaps to die, without without without - oh, think of me only as a grateful child whose life you've kept from being spoiled."

"I shall not go away without-what?" he asked eagerly. 'Oh, I don't know. What shall I say? My heart aches as if it would break at the thought of any thing happening to you." She dropped on the grass and, burying her face in her hands, sobbed aloud.

He knelt beside her and sought to take one of her hands.

Suddenly she hid her face against his breast for a moment and faltered, "Love me as a child now and leave me."

"You have given me my orders, little girl, and they would be obeyed as far as you could see were I with you every day."

"Lieutenant Scoville !" shouted the distant voice of an orderly. He hastily kissed away the tears in her eyes, exclaiming, "Never doubt my return, if living," and was gone.

In a moment he had passed through the shrubbery. Before she had regained self-control and followed he was speeding his horse towards the ridge. "There, he has gone without his dinner," she said in strong self-reproach, hastening to the cabin. Chunk, who was stuffing a chicken and

corn-bread into a haversack, reassured her.

"Doan you

worry, Miss Lou," he said. "Dis yere chicken gwine ter foller 'im right slam troo ebery ting till hit cotch up," and he galloped after his new "boss" in a way to make good his words.

CHAPTER XXI.

MIS

TWO STORMS.

ISS LOU sunk wearily on the door-step of Aun' Jinkey's cabin where the reader first made her acquaintance. She drew a long sigh. "Oh, I must rest and get my breath. So much is happening!"

"You po' chile!" was the sympathetic response. "Ah well, honey, de good Lawd watchin' ober you. I year how dat ole snake-in-de-grass Perkins git out Miss Whately's keridge en tink he gwine ter tote vou off nobody know whar. You passin' troo de Red Sea long o' us, honey. I yeared how you say you doan wanter lebe yo' ole mammy. I ain' cried so sence I wus a baby w'en I yeared dat. Doan you reckermember, honey? You sot right dar en wish sump'n ter hap'n. I 'spects we bettah be keerful how we wishes fer tings. Doan you min' de time Uncle Lusthah pray fer rain en we wus all nigh drownded?"

"I'm not sorry, mammy, things happened, for my heart's been warmed, warmed as never before. Oh, it's so sweet to know that one is cared for; it is so sweet to have somebody look you in the eyes and say, "I want you to be happy in your own way."

"Did Marse Scoville say dat?"

The girl nodded.

"I'se hab ter smoke on dat ar lil whiles."

Both were lost in thought for a time, Miss Lou's eyes looking dreamily out through the pines and oaks as they