"I am really very happy to make your acquaintance, colonel. This is the first time in our rather long married life--look at those great girls!--that I have had the pleasure of meeting any of my wife's English friends. I hope we shall see a great deal of you. I hope to persuade you to visit us at Mondreer for a few weeks before you return to your native land," he said, with all his honest, friendly soul in every look and tone. "Thanks, very much. I shall be but too well pleased. Yes! it is nearly twenty years since we saw each other last, yet the moment I entered this room I recognized Lady Elfrida," he said. "Pardon me," coldly objected the lady. "When I married a citizen of this republic, to live in it, I took my husband's style with his name, and am called Mrs. Force." "Ah! true! precisely! perfectly so! A thousand apologies! I will try to remember." And the colonel sank back in his chair. He remained for about half an hour conversing with the family party, or rather, to report exactly, with Mr. Force, for neither Mrs. Force nor any other one of them contributed much to the conversation. At length he arose, bowed and left them. "A very agreeable man, indeed! A very entertaining companion! Well read and well traveled! Knows the world! Understands human nature! An old friend of yours, my dear?" said Abel Force, turning to his beautiful wife. "An old acquaintance of my brother, rather. They were in the same regiment in India," coldly replied the lady. "Ah! but that is a strong bond of union between men. Your brother's comrade in the Indian campaign! He is traveling now on a long furlough, he says. We must see more of him, good fellow! We must have him down for a few weeks at Mondreer." "No!" impulsively sprang from the lady's heart; but the word did not pass her whitening lips. She suppressed the exclamation, sent back the strong objection to hide in her bosom among other heavy secrets there, and--kept silence. The honest and honorable man, who had no mysteries of his own and never suspected them in another, did not observe his wife's agitation. He was not looking toward her, in fact, he was looking down on his own clasped fingers and idly twirling thumbs, and thinking of the good time he was going to have with his wife's old friend and his own new acquaintance. "Yes," he went dreaming on and murmuring half to himself, "we must certainly have him down to Mondreer for the autumn, and show him what Maryland country life is like! I reckon he will find it more like old England than anything he has seen in America. He is the first countryman of yours, my dear, who has ever fallen in our way since we left England, and we must make the most of him! Especially as he is not only a countryman, but an old friend." So saying, Abel Force arose and sauntered off to see if the evening mail had come in.