awful wrench, but I did it that day you were at the house. It came hard too, for only the day before a letter came from her full of all sorts of queer things. A little bird had whispered that, like all the rest, I had found my cadet attachment something to be forgotten with the gray coat and bell buttons. She had heard this, that, and the other thing; she would not reproach. It was only what she had predicted all along, etc., and it cut me up like blazes; but mother smiled quietly when I told her, said that I must expect to be handled without gloves, and warned me that I must look for very _just_ comments on my conduct; and then somehow I decided that you had written to her about me. You said nothing to make me think so, and altogether I was in an awful stew until this morning." "And what now?" I asked, eagerly. "Her answer came. Brandon, she's a trump; she's a gem; and so's her letter. Mother's got it, and is writing to her herself. I'm inexpressibly humbled, but somehow or other happier than I've ever been." And the boy and I shook hands warmly, and Mr. Brandon bethought himself that that blessed Bella should have the loveliest Easter present the avuncular purse could buy. "What did Bella say?" he asked. "Oh! I can't quite tell you. It was all just so sweet and warm-hearted and congratulatory (though that is possibly premature), and just as lovely a letter as ever was written." "And we may look for two weddings in the --th Cavalry, then?" But Mars' features clouded. "Vinton and Miss Summers will be married next month; for Vinton says we may expect to be ordered to the plains with the coming of summer, but no such luck for me. I have precious little hope just now." "And has Miss Carrington heard of our Bella?" I asked, mischievously. "Good heavens! I hope not. That would be the death-blow to everything." Yes, it struck me that _there_ would be a weapon that Miss Kit would use with merciless power. CHAPTER XVIII. It was a gala night at the opera. The grand old house, so perfect in acoustic properties, so comfortably old-fashioned in design, so quaintly foreign in all its appointments, was filled with an audience composed of the music-loving people of New Orleans, and a sprinkling of Northern visitors still lingering amid the balmy odors of the magnolia and the orange-blossoms. Spring had come,--summer was coming. The sun was already high and warm enough to warrant the appearance of parasols by day; while, after it sank to rest, the ray-warmed breezes were welcomed through open door and casement; and in hundreds of slender hands the fan, swung and flirted with the indolent grace our Southern women have so readily learned from their Castilian sisterhood across the sea, stirred the perfumed air, and rustled soft accompaniment to the witchery of the music.