She was full of gayety. She had had a splendid nap; had actually slept out of doors. Did he see that tent made out of a blanket? She had slept in that. She could bivouac as well as you, Captain Colburne; she was as good a soldier as you, Captain Colburne. She liked it, of all things in the world. She never would sleep in the house again till she was fif--sixty. It was curious to note how she checked herself upon the point of mentioning fifty as the era of first decrepitude. Her father was over fifty, and therefore fifty could not be old age, notwithstanding her preconceived opinions on the subject. "But oh, how obliged we are to you!" she added, changing suddenly to a serious view. "How kind and noble and brave you are! We owe you so much!--Isn't it strange that I should be saying such things to you? I never thought that I should ever say anything of the kind to any man but my father and my husband. I am indeed grateful to you, and thankful that you have escaped." As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears. There was a singular changeableness about her of late; she shifted rapidly and without warning, almost without cause, from one emotion to another; she felt and expressed all emotions with more than usual fervor. She was sadder at times and gayer at times than circumstances seemed to justify. An ordinary observer, a man especially, would have been apt to consider some of her conduct odd, if not irrational. The truth is that she had been living a new life for the past two months, and that her being, physical and moral, had not yet been able to settle into a tranquil unity of function and feeling. Many women and a few men will understand me here. Colburne was too merely a young man to comprehend anything; but he could stand a little way off and worship. He thought, as she faced him with her cheeks flushed and her eyes the brighter for tears, that she was very near in guise and nature to an angel. It may be a paradox; it may be a dangerous fact to make public; but he certainly was loving another man's wife with perfect innocence. "What is the matter with Mauma Major?" asked the Doctor. Colburne briefly related the martyrdom of Scott; and father and daughter hurried to console the weeping black woman.