But Mrs. Larue was not the only cause which prevented Colburne's visit from being a monotony of happiness. He soon discovered that there was an understanding between Colonel Carter and Miss Ravenel; not an engagement, perhaps, but certainly an inner circle of confidences and sentiments into which he was not allowed to enter. In this matter Lillie was more open and legible than her lover. She so adored her hero because of the deadly perils which he had affronted, and the honor which he had borne from among their flame and smoke, that she could not always conceal, and sometimes did not care to conceal, her admiration. Not that she ever expressed it by endearments or fondling words: no, that would have been a coarse audacity of which her maidenly nature was incapable: but there were rare glances of irrepressible meaning, surprised out of her very soul, which came like revelations. When she asked Colburne to tell her the whole story of Georgia Landing, he guessed easily what she most wanted to hear. To please her, he made Carter the hero of the epic, related how impetuous he was during the charge, how superbly cool as soon as it was over, how he sat his horse and waved his sabre and gave his orders. To be sure, the enthusiastic youth took a soldierly pleasure in the history; he was honestly proud of his commander, and he loved to tell the tale of his own only battle. But notwithstanding this slight pleasure, notwithstanding that the Doctor treated him with even tender consideration, and that Mrs. Larue was often amusing as well as embarrassing, he did not enjoy his visit. This mysterious cloud which encompassed the Colonel and Miss Ravenel, separating them from all others, cast upon him a shadow of melancholy. In the first place, of course, it was painful to suspect that he had lost this charming girl; in the second, he grieved on her account, not believing it possible that with that man for a husband she could be permanently happy. Carter was a brave soldier, an able officer, a person of warm and naturally kind impulses; but gentlemen of such habits as his were not considered good matches where Colburne had formed his opinions. No man, whatever his talents, could win a professorship in Winslow University, or occupy a respectable niche in New Boston society, who rarely went to church, who drank freely and openly, who had been seen to gamble, who swore like a trooper, and who did other things which the Colonel had been known to do. All this time he was so over-modest by nature, and so oppressed by an acquired sense of soldierly subordination, that he never seriously thought of setting himself up as a rival against the Colonel. Perhaps I am tedious in my analysis of the Captain's opinions, motives and sentiments. The truth is that I take a sympathetic interest in him, believing him to be a representative young man of my native New England, and that I consider him a better match for