"Oh! That's it, of course," chimed in Mrs. Brenham at once. "The Johnsons have a girl--Winnie they call her--who is perpetually gadding about, and I warrant it was she. Come! Let us see the scrap-book." And so the party returned to the business of the evening and were soon absorbed in the pages of McLean's collection. He had many a question to answer, and was kept from the seat he longed to take, by Nellie Bayard's side. Where three or four women are gathered together over an album of photographs or a scrap-book of which he is the owner, no man need hope to escape for so much as an instant. Yet she was watching him and wondering at what she saw,--the effort it cost him to pay attention to their simplest question--the evident distraction that had seized upon him. By and by tattoo sounded. The major went out with McLean to receive the reports, and when they returned Mr. Hatton came too. "Where have you been, Mr. Hatton?" asked Mrs. Miller. "We've been looking for you all the evening, and wouldn't have a bite or a glass of wine until you came in." "Over at the Gordons'. They are having a little gathering too, mostly of the refugees,--regular hen convention. I was the only man there for over an hour." "Who all were there?" inquired the hostess--her Southern birth and her woman's interest in the goings-on of the garrison manifesting themselves at one and the same time. "Oh, about a dozen, all told," answered Mr. Hatton. "Mrs. Bruce and Jeannie, Mrs. Forrest, Mrs. Post, the Gordon girls, Mrs. Wells, and finally Miss Forrest. The little parlor was packed like a ration-can by nine o'clock, and I was glad to slip away at first call." "A likely statement in view of the fact that Jeannie Bruce was there." "Fact, though!" answered Hatton, with a knowing look on his handsome face. He did not want to say it was because Jeannie Bruce went home at "first call" and that he escorted her. McLean would be sure to understand that point, however, thought Mr. Hatton to himself, and to obviate the possibility of his mischievously suggesting that solution of the matter it might be well to tip him a wink. Looking around in search of his chum, Mr. Hatton was surprised at the odd and wretched expression on McLean's face. The tall young subaltern had seated himself at last by Nellie Bayard's side, but instead of devoting himself to her, as was to have been expected, he was staring with white face at Hatton and drinking in every word. "Why, what's the matter, old man? You look all struck of a heap!" exclaimed Hatton, in genuine concern. "Mr. McLean encountered a spook on his way over here," laughed the major, seeing that McLean, in embarrassment, knew not how to reply. "He ran afoul of a flying Dutchwoman out on the parade in the dark, and was mystified because she would not stop and chat with him."