And Georgia who seemed gifted with unusually clear vision, Georgia must have realized this, for had she not placed Cleo's hand in his, and solemnly declared that it was her dying wish he should in due time take this fair blue-eyed cousin for his own. At first in the keen anguish of his grief Roderic scarcely gave this a second thought, but later on it loomed up before his vision as he saw how Cleo avoided him and how she blushed furiously whenever he glanced at her. Thus he knew an explanation was absolutely necessary, and not being the man to avoid duty he had a long interview with his cousin. It was arranged that Roderic should go away, after poor Georgia had been buried near Ponce, (where Leon decided should be the final resting place of his devoted sister,) and not see Cleo again for six months--if at the end of that time he could come to her and honestly confess a positive growth of the love he had always entertained for her, she would consent to become his wife. That was all. They had not been interfered with in leaving San Juan harbor, and a safe landing was made on the southern shore of Porto Rico where the stars and stripes already floated over the land that fate intended should be one of the fairest gems upon Columbia's diadem. After the simple ceremony that marked the funeral of the beautiful girl, Roderic thought life was a blank to him. He joined one of the armies of occupation and saw some hot service as the boys in blue advanced across the island toward San Juan, always driving the Spaniards before, yet each day finding the task more difficult. Utterly reckless in his present state of mind, Roderic rushed into the jaws of death once too often--if his mad desire was to follow his poor Georgia across the borders of eternity he came very near accomplishing it one day when, with a few chosen spirits he cleared a rocky eminence of Spanish bushwhackers lying in wait for the Yankee advance guard. The field doctor actually gave him up for lost, but he was carried back to the town of Ponce in an old _volante_ found at a farmer's, relic of days long gone by, and not the most comfortable vehicle of transportation in the world for a pain-racked hero, but infinitely better than nothing. Here, in the hospital they found that he had one chance in a dozen if carefully nursed, and behold, who should appear at the side of his cot but Cleo, the girl he had believed a thousand miles away on pleasure bent; yes Cleo, who, finding there was need of nurses to look after the sick and wounded heroes among the Regulars and Volunteers, "her own boys" as she called them, had quickly chosen to let the voyage wait and devote herself to the ministration of angelic duties. How they worshiped her, those wounded and fever stricken fellows to whom her presence brought such comfort as she wrote letters, read cheering words and waited upon them. Many a heart asked Heaven's choicest blessings to follow her.