Betty smiled; and then, while Mrs. Lightfoot stood sharply regarding Car'line, who was shucking a tray of young corn, she timidly began upon her mission. “The flags must be finished, and I can't find the silk,” she pleaded. “Isn't there a scrap in the house I may have? Let me look about the attic.” The old lady shook her head. “I haven't allowed anybody to set foot in my attic for forty years,” she replied decisively. “Why, I'd almost as soon they'd step into my grandfather's vault.” Then as Betty's face fell she added generously. “As for white silk, I haven't any except my wedding dress, and that's yellow with age; but you may take it if you want it. I'm sure it couldn't come to a better end; at least it will have been to the front upon two important occasions.” “Your wedding dress!” exclaimed Betty in surprise, “oh, how could you?” Mrs. Lightfoot smiled grimly. “I could give more than a wedding dress if the Confederacy called for it, my dear,” she answered. “Indeed, I'm not perfectly sure that I couldn't give the Major himself--but go upstairs and wait for me while I send Car'line for the keys.” She returned to the storeroom, and Betty went upstairs to wander leisurely through the cool faintly lighted chambers. They were all newly swept and scented with lavender, and the high tester beds, with their slender fluted posts, looked as if they had stood spotless and untouched for generations. In Dan's room, which had been his mother's also, the girl walked slowly up and down, meeting, as she passed, her own eyes in the darkened mirror. Her mind fretted with the thought that Dan's image had risen so often in the glass, and yet had left no hint for her as she looked in now. If it had only caught and held his reflection, that blank mirror, she could have found it, she felt sure, though a dozen faces had passed by since. Was there nothing left of him, she wondered, nothing in the place where he had lived his life? She turned to the bed and picked up, one by one, the scattered books upon the little table. Among them there was a copy of the “Morte d'Arthur,” and as it fell open in her hand, she found a bit of her own blue ribbon between the faded leaves. A tremor ran through her limbs, and going to the window she placed the book upon the sill and read the words aloud in the fragrant stillness. Behind her in the dim room Dan seemed to rise as suddenly as a ghost--and that high-flown chivalry of his, which delighted in sounding phrases as in heroic virtues, was loosened from the leaves of the old romance. “For there was never worshipful man nor worshipful woman but they loved one better than another, and worship in arms may never be foiled; but first reserve the honour to God, and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady; and such love I call virtuous love.”