"And is the looby with his regiment or staying here?" "Here." Brereton laughed gaily, and more loudly than was prudent. "A bet and a marvel," he bantered: "a barley-corn to Miss Janice Meredith, that the sweetest, most bewitching creature in the world lacks a groom on her wedding day! I must not tarry, for 't is thirty miles to Morristown, and three days is none too much time for what I would do. Farewell," Jack ended, once more catching her hands and kissing them. He hurriedly crossed the room, but as he laid hold of the latch he as suddenly turned and strode back to the maid. "Has he ever kissed you?" he demanded, with a savage scowl on his face. "Never!" impulsively cried the girl, while the colour flooded into her cheeks. "Bless him for a cold-blooded icicle!" joyfully exclaimed the officer; and before Janice could realise his intention she was caught in his arms and fervently kissed. The next moment a door slammed, and he was gone, leaving the girl leaning for very want of breath against the chimney side, with redder cheeks than ever. The colour still lingered the next morning to such an extent that it was commented upon by both her parents, who found in it proof that she was now reconciled to their wishes. Had they been closer observers, they would have noticed that several times in the course of the day it waxed or waned without apparent reason, that their daughter was singularly restless, and that any sound out of doors caused her to start and listen. Not even the getting out and trying on of her wedding gown seemed to interest her. Yet nothing occurred to break the usual monotony of the life. Her state of nervous expectancy on the second day was shown when the inevitable contingent of English officers arrived a little before dinner; for as they appeared without previous warning in the parlour door, Janice gave a scream, which startled Philemon, who was relying upon but two legs of his chair, into a pitch over backward, and brought the squire's gouty foot to the floor with a bump and a wail of pain. "Body o' me!" ejaculated one of the new-corners. "Dost take us for Satan himself, that ye greet us so?" "Tush, man!" corrected Mobray. "Miss Meredith could not see under our cloaks, and so, no doubt, thought us rebels. Who wouldn't scream at the prospect of an attack of the Continental blue devils--eh, Miss Janice?" "Better the blue devils," retorted Janice, "than a scarlet fever." "Hah, hah!" laughed a fellow-officer. "'T was you got us into that, Sir Frederick. Lieutenant Hennion, your first task after to-morrow's ceremony is plain and clear. "Would that I had the suppression of this rebellion!" groaned the baronet, "'stead of one which fights us with direst cold and hunger, to say nothing of the scurvy and the putrid fever."