Looking back, my eyes took in for the last time the old home; and the picture lingers with me, will live with me to the end of my lonely life. The red-gold light of the setting sun streamed in all its glory on the southern front of the quaint plantation house. The tangled shrubbery, the sombre line of the dense forest beyond the fields, the vines and tendrils that clung about the gallery railing and the wooden pillars, the low-hanging eaves, the moss-covered line of porch-roof,--all were tinged, gilded, gleaming here and there with the warmth and glow of the gladness-giving rays. The windows above blazed with their reflected glory. Even old Blondo's curly hide and Jake Biggs's woolly pate gained a lustre they never knew before. All around the evidences of approaching decay and present dilapidation, so general throughout the bright sunny South years after the war, all around the homeliest objects, the wheelbarrow and garden tools, there clung a tinge of gladness in answering homage to the declining king of day; but, central figures of all, the trio we left upon the steps, _they_ fairly stood in a halo of mellow gold. The gray-haired gentleman waving his thin hand in parting salutation; the noble, womanly girl at his side, half supporting, half leaning upon him; and on the lower stair, kissing her hand, waving her dainty kerchief, her eyes dancing, her cheeks aflame, her white teeth flashing through the parted lips, her fragile form all radiance, all sweet, glowing, girlish beauty, stood Kitty Carrington; she who but a moment before had seemed so patiently sad. "Did you ever see anything prettier?" I gasped, as at last the winding roadway hid them from our sight. "Kitty, Brandon?--she's a darling!" was the warm-hearted answer. That was precisely my opinion. All the way into Sandbrook I was tortured with curiosity to know the purport of the mysterious parting whisper. It would not do to let Colonel Summers suspect that of me; neither would it answer to propound any question. We had much to talk of that is of no interest and has no bearing on our story, but it kept us employed until we reached the station. Our train was due at 7.45, going west, the same hour at which the troops had left. Their single passenger-car and the four freight-cars on which their horses were carried had been coupled to the regular train. They had gone, we learned, to Grand Junction; thence down the Mississippi Central. The station-master was an old army friend of the colonel's. He received us with all courtesy, and immediately asked us into his own little office. "Reckon you'd best just make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen; that train's nigh onto two hours late, near as I can make it." "Two hours late! Why, that will ruin our connection!" exclaimed Harrod.