Two hours later, the old carriage rattled up to the steps. The colonel stood aside, holding some final consultation with his father. Miss Summers, with a blush that was vastly becoming to her, handed me a letter for the major. "As yet, you know, Major Vinton has not been able to send me his New Orleans address. They are barely there by this time; but you were so incautious as to offer to take anything to him, so I burden you with this." Kitty Carrington was looking on with wistful eyes. "And you, little lady? what note or message will you intrust to me?" She had smoothed back her bright hair. She was looking again as she had the night she begged to play nurse over our unconscious Mars. She looked older, graver, but so gentle, so patient in the trouble that had come into her young life. Whatever that trouble might have been _I_ could not say. There was something very pathetic about the slender little figure as she stood there. For all answer to my question, she shook her head, smiling rather sadly, yet striving to throw archness into her accompanying gesture. The faint shrug of her pretty shoulders, the forward movement of her hands, with open and extended palms,--something so Southern in it all. I could not help noting it. Possibly I stared, as previous confessions indicate that I had that adventurous night in the cars. My rudeness caused her to turn sharply away with heightened color. Then came general good-byes, good speeds, good lucks, promises to write,--those promises, like so many others, made only to be broken. We clambered into the carriage. Already the driver was gathering his whip and reins; had "chucked" to his sleepy team. Harrod was sitting on the side nearest the group on the steps; I craning my neck forward for a last look at them. Kitty was eagerly bending forward; her lips parted, her eyes dilated, her fingers working nervously. Already the wheels had begun to crunch through the gravel, when with sudden movement she darted like a bird down the steps. "_Harrod!_" she cried. "Hold on, driver," was the response, as he bent to the doorway to meet her. Standing on tiptoe, her tiny white hands clutching his arm, a vivid color shooting over her face, her eyes one moment nervously, apprehensively, reproachfully glancing at me, plainly saying, "Please don't listen," then, raised to his bronzed, tender face, as he bent ear towards her lips in response to the evident appeal. She rapidly whispered half a dozen words. "_Do_ you understand? _Sure_ you understand?" she questioned eagerly, as now she leaned back, looking up into his eyes. He bent still farther, kissed her forehead. "Sure," he nodded. "Sure." Then back she sprang. Crack went the whip, and we rolled away towards the gate.