So things went, and before the summer evenings were over, the young Captain had ridden to the point where he had given Blair Cary all the confidences which a young man in his twenties is likely to give the prettiest girl in his circle of acquaintance, especially when she is the only one whose eyes soften a little at the recital, and who responds a bit by giving just a little of her own. Not that Miss Cary for a moment allowed Middleton to forget that on the one great subject always present, the world stretched between them. They were enemies. Between them there was never more than a truce. She would be his friend while it lasted; but never more. That was all! Her skirmish-line, so to speak, exchanged courtesies with his; but, on the first suggestion of a signal, sprang to her rifle-pits. She always wore, when she rode, a gray cap, which Middleton, without asking any questions, knew had been her brother’s. It was a badge, and the young man recognized it as such. She still wore her brass buttons, and would never give him one of them. One afternoon, as they were returning from a ride in which he had told her all about Ruth Welch, dwelling somewhat on their cousinship, they stopped at the ford where he had gone to Blair’s rescue the day her horse fell, and he asked her casually if she would give him one of the buttons to save his life. She quietly said “No,” and he believed her. Yet this made little difference to the young man. He was not in love with her, he was sure. He only enjoyed her. And the summer evenings which he spent at Birdwood, or riding with her through the arching woods, were the pleasantest he had ever known. As they watered their horses at the ford that afternoon no less than four other couples came riding up on their way home, and there was quite a little levee held in the limpid stream, Middleton finding himself taken into the talk and raillery quite as a member of the circle. The far-off call of ploughmen to their teams in the low-grounds of Red Rock and the distant lowing of cattle in the pastures came muffled on the soft air, while a woodlark in the woods along the waterside sang its brilliant song to its tardy mate with a triumph born only of security and peace. As Captain Middleton looked at the faded gray coats and his blue one, the numbers doubled by the reflection in the placid stream, and listened to the laughter about him, he could not but think what a picture and proof of peace it was. And Miss Cary was the prettiest girl in the party.