Gertrude looked even lovelier than she had the night before at the party. Her cheeks had a color unusual, and her eyes were bright with hope, expectation, or some unspoken cause for happiness; it sounded in the tones of her voice and shone in the happy curves of her lips as she smiled. "Look at yourself in the glass, Gertrude," said Evilena, dragging her to the long mirror in the sitting room, "you are always lovely, dear, but today you are entrancingly beautiful." "Today I am entrancingly happy," returned Miss Loring, looking in the mirror, but seeing in it not herself, but Judithe, who was crossing the hall, and who looked like a Spanish picture in her gleam of yellow tissues and topazes. "Wasn't it clever of me to think of lighting the lamps?" asked Evilena in frank self-laudation, "just listen how that rain beats; and did you see the hail? Well, it fell, lots of it, while we were dressing; that's what makes the air so cool. I hope it will storm all the rain down at once and then give us a clear day tomorrow, when Kenneth has to go away." "It would be awful for any one to be out in a storm like this," remarked the other as the crash of thunder shook the house; "what about Captain Monroe having to go through it?" "Caroline said the guard has just got here, so I suppose he will have to go no matter what the weather is. Well, I suppose he'd just as soon be killed by the storm as to be shot for a spy. Only think of it--a guest of ours to be taken away as a spy!" "It is dreadful," assented Gertrude, and then looking at Judithe, she added, "I hope you were not made nervous by the shot and excitement last night; I assure you we do not usually have such finales to our parties." "I am not naturally timid, thank you," returned Judithe, with a careless smile, all the more careless that she felt the blue eyes were regarding her with unusual watchfulness; "one must expect all those inconveniences in war times, especially when people are located on the border land, and I hear it is really but a short ride to the coast, where your enemies have their war vessels for blockade. Did I understand you to say the military men have come for your friend, the Federal Captain? What a pity! He danced so well!" And with the careless smile still on her lips, she passed them and crossed the hall to the library. Evilena shook her head and sighed. "_I_ am just broken hearted over his arrest," she acknowledged, "but it is because--well, it is _not_ merely because he was a good dancer! Gertrude, I--I did something horrid this morning, I just _could_ not eat my breakfast without showing my sympathy in some way. You know those last cookies I baked? Well, I had some of those sent over with his breakfast." "Poor fellow!" and Delaven shook his head sadly over the fate of Monroe. Evilena eyed him suspiciously; but his face was all innocence and sympathy.