“ELFIE!” indignantly exclaimed Miss Conyers. “You _know_ you’d poison me if I should dare to—hem—be a friend of Justin’s! Oh, I know! I’ve read the story of the dog in the manger! how the dog couldn’t eat the hay and wouldn’t let the heifer eat it!” laughed the girl. “You are privileged to jest roughly, I suppose,” said Miss Conyers, coldly. “I know I am,” admitted Elfie—“privileged to do everything but flirt with Justin. If I was to dare to do _that_—hush, girls! you know how Britty can hate _men_, but you will never know how she can hate women until some unlucky woman gives Justin her glove to wear in his cap!—Mercy! there, I’ve done!” exclaimed Elfie, shrinking from Britomarte’s flashing eyes. “And now we’ll change the subject. Justin, _mon brave_! you look very clean and very nice; your tight suit is such a clear bright blue, and your shirt-collar is as white as the driven snow; but, Justin, _mon ami_, can you _keep_ clean over there in camp? that is the question! or, when you come to see us, shall we have to put you in soak over night before we can breakfast with you next morning?” “The river flows below our fort, and the sutlers keep a good supply of brown soap and crash towels, so I have hopes to be able to keep out of the category of the ‘unwashed!’” said the volunteer. “I am very glad to hear it. For as far as my observation goes, there seems to be the most intimate relationship, and an inevitable connection, between dirt and glory. Why, even my pap, in speaking of the victorious field of Gettysburg, could only describe it as a ‘very dusty’ place.” As Justin was obliged to be back at his camp before the hour of “tattoo,” he could stay but a few minutes with his friends. He soon arose, took an affectionate leave of them, and went away. After this they saw but little of him at the parsonage. And when Erminie wished to see her brother, she had to get a pass from the provost marshal’s office, and cross the river, and visit him in camp, in one of the forts of the lines forming the southern defences of Washington. All this time Major Fielding passed his days reclining in an easy chair under the shade of the vine-wreathed porch, reading, smoking, and recruiting his strength. Young Ethel went every day to the Navy Department, with which he seemed to have a great deal of business. Britomarte and Erminie went daily to the hospitals, with kind words and good gifts to the soldiers. And what was Elfie doing? For one thing, she was making great havoc in the heart of the young lieutenant, who had been, from the first, fascinated by her elfin charms, and for another thing, by the mysteriousness and eccentricity of her appearance and deportment, she was exciting all manner of disagreeable conjectures concerning herself among her surrounding friends.