"At any rate," he cried, holding his hat on and bending lower, "we have Dixie for our common mother." His manner was patriotic. She glanced up to him--the distance was trivial--beaming with sisterly confidence, and just then the train lurched, and--he caught her. "H-I conscience! wa'n't it lucky I happened to have my arm back there just at that moment?" Barbara did not say. She stood with her back against the car, gazing at the track, her small feet braced forward with new caution, but she saw March lapse into reverie and heave another sigh. However, she observed his mind return and rightly divined he was thinking her silence a trifle ungracious; so she lifted her hand toward a white cloud that rose above the vanished hills and river, saying: "Our common mother waves us farewell." "Yes," he cried with grateful pleasure. Seeing her draw her wrap closer he added, "You're cold?" And it was true, although she shook her head. He bent again to explain. "It'll be warmer when we leave this valley. You see, here----" "Yes," she nodded so intelligently that he did not finish. Miss Garnet, however, was thinking of her chaperone and dubiously glanced back at the door. Then she braced her feet afresh. They were extremely pretty. He smiled at them. "You needn't plant yourself so firmly," he said, "I'm not going to let you fall off." O dear! That reversed everything. She had decided to stay; now she couldn't. Once more the Northern pair received them with placid interest. Mr. Fair presently asked a question which John had waited for all day, and it was dark night without and lamplight within, and they were drawing near a large city, before the young man, in reply, had more than half told the stout plans and hopes of this expedition of his after capital and colonists. Mrs. Fair showed a most lively approval. "And must you leave us here?" Barbara had not noticed till now how handsome she was. Neither had John. "Yes, ma'am. But I shan't waste a day here if things don't show up right. I shall push right on to New York." Barbara hoped Mr. Fair's pleasantness of face meant an approbation as complete as his wife's, and, to hide her own, meditatively observed that this journey would be known in history as March's Raid. John laughed and thanked her for not showing the fears of Captains Champion and Shotwell that he would "go in like a lion and come out like a lamb." They hurried to the next section and peered out into the night with suppressed but eager exclamations. Long lines of suburban street-lamps were swinging by. Banks of coke-furnaces were blazing like necklaces of fire. Foundries and machine-shops glowed and were gone; and, far away, close by, and far away again, beautifully colored flames waved from the unseen chimneys of chemical works.