And oftener than any one else this escort was Captain Barry, of the second legion. It was he who stood at the door of the general's headquarters when, on that first day, Mary and Joscelyn arrived to make inquiry for Eustace, and snatching off his hat he came out to receive them, for they made a very charming picture as they advanced modestly toward the entrance, piloted by an orderly. The first smile from Joscelyn's blue eyes did the whole thing for him. He surrendered at once, without one effort at self-defence; and when he and Eustace reached her veranda, having escorted the girls home, there was not so much as one poor little pennant left fluttering over the ramparts of his heart. From that hour his comrades, when he was wanted, knew in whose parlour to seek him, and he never failed to let Joscelyn know when there was a pleasure ride or a tour of inspection planned for the day. It was for an excursion of this sort that Joscelyn dressed herself with exceeding care one afternoon and, with an officer at either bridle-rein, went out to see the army parade for the commander's inspection. The conversation as they paced along was all of the movements of a suspected spy from Greene's host beyond the Dan. "We cannot locate the fellow; but certain it is, the doings of our army are reported accurately to the insurrectionists. Yesterday a letter was discovered in a hollow stump on the mountain side, left there, of course, by preconcerted arrangement to be called for. The stump is being secretly watched, but as yet no results have been obtained. This is all well known and talked about, Mistress Joscelyn, and you, being one of us--" Barry's smile said the rest. "Is it a townsman who has written these reports, think you?" asked the girl, going over in her mind the people who might be implicated, with a quick inward throb for some of her friends. "I judge not, for there are references to the writer's journey back from the Dan. Evidently it is a follower of Greene who knows this country well. He is exceedingly artful, but his capture is necessarily certain, with all the precautions we have taken." "And what would be his fate, if caught?" "A spy is shot--or mayhap his lordship will hang him on the hill yonder, where they tell me Governor Tryon swung up the traitorous Regulators in years gone by. 'Twould be but another chapter in the red history of this your Tyburn Hill." The young soldier laughed at his own allusion, but Joscelyn shuddered; for the first time she seemed to fully realize the grim actualities of war. Her companions chatted on gayly, and finally she forced herself to join in the conversation; but somehow they could not get away from the subject of those surreptitious reports and their author.