The next day brought Maude De Vere, looking so handsome in her black dress, with her coquettish drab hat and long drab feather tipped with scarlet, that she reminded Annie of some bright tropical flower as she came into the room with the sparkle in her brilliant eyes, and the deep, rich bloom upon her cheek. She had regained her health and spirits rapidly within the last few weeks, and even Jimmie, who seldom saw beyond Annie’s fair face and soft blue eyes, drew a breath of wonder at the queenly girl who completely overshadowed those around her so far as size and form and physical development were concerned. But nothing could detract from the calm, quiet dignity of Annie’s manner, or from the pure, angelic beauty of her face, and as the two stood holding each other’s hands and looking into each other’s eyes, they made a most striking tableau, and Mrs. Carleton thought, with a thrill of pride, how well her sons had chosen. That night, as Maude was walking back to the hotel accompanied by Tom, he asked her again the question put in the cave of the Cumberland. “I understand about Arthur,” he said; “but he is dead; there is no promise now in the way. I claim you for my own. Am I wrong in doing so?” That Maude’s reply was wholly satisfactory was proved by the expression of Tom Carleton’s face when at last he stopped at the door of the hotel, and by the kiss which burned on Maude’s lips long after he had disappeared down the street. The next afternoon, while Tom was with Maude, and both Mrs. Carleton and Rose were out on a shopping expedition, Annie sat alone with Jimmie in the pleasant little room which had been given to him as a place where he would be more quiet than in the parlor. Annie had been playing with Rose’s boy,—the little Jimmie, a handsome, sturdy fellow of nearly a year old, whom the entire household spoiled. He was already beginning to talk, and having taken a fancy to Annie, he tried to call her name, and made out of it a tolerably distinct “Auntee,” which brought a blush to Annie’s face, and a teasing smile to Jimmie’s. “Come, sit by me a moment, Annie,” Jimmie said, when the child had been taken out by his nurse. “Sit on this stool, so,—a little nearer to me,—there, that’s right,” he continued, in the tone of authority he had unconsciously acquired since his convalescence. He was lying upon the couch, and Annie was sitting at his side and so near to him that his long fingers could smooth and caress her shining hair, while his saucy eyes feasted themselves upon her face, as he asked “when she would really be the auntie of the little boy who called her now by that name.” “Not till you are able to stand alone,” was Annie’s reply, and then, for the first time since his return from Andersonville, Jimmie spoke of that episode in his life at New London, when little Lulu Howard had stirred his boyish blood, and filled his boyish fancy. Perhaps he wanted to tease Annie, for he said to her: