"Yes, that's so," she admitted, "but I used to think they were only waiting till Kenneth came of age, or until he graduated. But my! I didn't see it make a spec of difference. They danced together at the party given for him, and smiled, careless as you please, and now the dancing is ended, they keep on friendly and smiling, and I'm downright puzzled to know what they do mean." "Maybe no more than those two, who are only amusing themselves," said Gertrude, with a glance towards the lawn where Evilena and Delaven were fencing with long stalks of a wild lily they had brought from the swamps, and when Evilena was vanquished by the foe her comforter was a white-haired gentleman, inclined to portliness, and with much more than an inclination to courtliness, whom Evilena called "My Judge." It was two weeks after the descent of Aunt Sajane and Evilena upon Loringwood. The former, after a long consultation with Dr. Delaven, had returned to her own home, near the McVeigh plantation, and putting her household in order for a more prolonged visit than at first intended, she had come back to be near Gertrude in case-- None of them had put into words to each other their thought as to Matthew Loring's condition, but all understood the seriousness of it, and Gertrude, of course, must not be left alone. Dr. Delaven had meant only to accompany the invalid home, consult with their local physician, and take his departure after a visit to Mrs. McVeigh, and possibly a sight of their new battlefield beside Kenneth, if his command was not too far away. Kenneth McVeigh was Col. McVeigh now, to the great delight of the sister, who loved men who could fight. On his return from Paris he had, at his own request, and to the dismay of his family, been sent to the frontier. At the secession of his state he was possessed of a captaincy, which he resigned, returned home, and in six weeks tendered a regiment, fully equipped at his own expense, to the Confederate government. His offer had been accepted and himself made a colonel. His regiment had already seen one year of hard service, were veterans, with a colonel of twenty-five--a colonel who had been carried home wounded unto death, the surgeons said, from the defeat of Fort Donaldson. He had belied their prophecies of death, however, and while not yet equal to the rigors of camp life, he had accepted a commission abroad of decided importance to his government, and became one of the committee to deal with certain English sympathizers who were fitting out vessels for the Confederate navy. Mrs. McVeigh had been called to Mobile by the serious illness of an aged relative and had been detained by something much less dreary, the marriage of her brother, who had command of a garrison at that point. Thus barred from seeing either of his former Parisian friends, Delaven would have gone back to Charleston, or else gone North or West to view a new land in battle array.