"Beautiful! Well, I think it is _imbecile_! Hurt my maidenly modesty, indeed!--one would think my modesty were a sore toe to be stubbed or trod upon. Stop laughing, Joscelyn Cheshire; you are as stupid as Billy." And when Joscelyn answered with another silvery peal, Janet, in high indignation, flung out of the room and down the steps, her heels clattering as she went; and the next morning her maid carried the offending letter to Mistress Bryce with a sweetly worded note, saying Billy had no doubt made a mistake in the address of his missive. And Billy swore his first oath when he heard of it. Nor was Janet the only one who came to confessional in Joscelyn's room. It was there that Betty found the only outlet for her secret joy. In spite of the war and its sad consequences, the year had been such a happy one--the sweetest year she had ever known; for it had been full of dreams and fancies, of thrills and hopes. Even the self-reproach, with which she sometimes tormented herself because of her mother, had in it a touch of sweetness since it was linked with her love. The whole world was as a new place; the winter snows held an unthought of revelation of beauty, and each flower that budded to the spring sunshine was a fresh creation bearing on its petals an unspelled message of love. She would not write to Eustace, for that would be undutiful to her mother; but Joscelyn's letters were filled with tender messages for her, with now and then a little wafered note that burnt her fingers with a delicious sense of forbidden fruit, and which she read and re-read in the privacy of her white-curtained room, trembling and flushing at the story they told,--the future they painted. But as the spring advanced, a shade of sadness crept over her happiness, a film like the impalpable dust that gathers on a fine picture hanging always in the light. Eustace had ceased to write. Two months had gone by, and no word had come from him. A strange, new fear was tugging at Betty's heart. "Naught of evil has befallen him, or Mary would know; and you said they had no tidings?" she asked wistfully one evening, as she leaned against Joscelyn's window and watched the pale-petalled stars blossom through the purple gloaming. "I rode all the way to the Singletons' yesterday afternoon on purpose to ask, and they know nothing." "And his mother feels no uneasiness?" "None. She says Lord Cornwallis would immediately inform her if he should be killed." Betty heaved a deep sigh; and then that latent fear came out, "I suppose he finds the ladies of the city so beautiful and entertaining that he has forgotten his--his friends here." "S-o! that is what makes you so long of face these days? Well, I do not believe a word of it. Eustace is no jilt. You will find that you at least are remembered, and that his silence is from reasonable cause."