"Do you know, Miss Barbara, that you are addressing a Major in the Confederate army," replied Cully, folding his arms with a great effort at dignity. "You will accost me hereafter as Major Dinwiddie, if you please." "Well, Major, this gentleman and myself are engaged, so"---- "Engaged!" howled Cully, with flashing eyes and vociferous speech. "Engaged! And you dare to confess it to me, your brother! Engaged! And to an Abolitionist,--a low-born Yankee! I cancel the engagement." Barbara was too much roused by the cub's insolence to care to correct the misapprehension which he had blundered into so precipitately, and which she was now disposed to make a verity. "Do you mean to tell me," demanded the cub, "that you are engaged to be married to this man?" "Yes, if he'll have me," said Barbara, putting forth her hand, which Penrose eagerly seized, exclaiming,-- "Will I _have_ you, Barbara? Yes, as the best treasure life can offer." And the first kiss was exchanged. "Look here," said Cully, "this business must stop where it is. I demand, Sir, that you leave the house with me this instant." And then, as an amused expression flitted over the Captain's face, the cub asked angrily,-- "Why do you smile, Sir?" "Sir," said the Captain, "your sister and I have cause for smiling; we are happy." The cub took from his side-pocket a revolver and cocked it. Penrose stood up, and Barbara threw herself between him and her brother. "Coward!" cried the cub, "to allow yourself to be shielded by a woman!" The cub, under the influence of Pro-slavery precedents, had really got it into his thick head, that he, under the circumstances, was the man of chivalry and valor, and that because the unarmed Penrose would not present a fair shot to his revolver, that gentleman was chargeable with an excess of poltroonery of which only a Yankee could be guilty. The cub's heroics were ignominiously cut short. Suddenly his two arms were seized from behind, while his pistol was wrenched from his grasp. Two armed policemen, followed by Mr. Dinwiddie and Nero, had entered the room. "Am I betrayed?" exclaimed the cub. "Blockhead!" said his father, "Fort Warren shall henceforth be your school, till we knock a little common-sense into that obstinate skull of yours." "Fort Warren!" cried Cully, gnashing his teeth. "But I'm here on a furlough, disguised as a sailor, you perceive. I promised to be back to my regiment by Friday. Fort Warren?" "Never!" shrieked Mrs. Dinwiddie, entering the room from the conservatory, where she had been hiding. "Kill me, but don't compel my son to break his pledge to the Confederate authority." "Bah!" said Dinwiddie. "Officers, take the booby away." Nero almost sank into his boots with excess of enjoyment, but abruptly put on a very agonized face, and showed the whites of his eyes, as Mrs. Dinwiddie looked towards him.