Mr. Garrett spoke, and Leacraft rose to his feet. “We have indeed suffered a harsh blow, but it has its after thoughts of alleviating hope, and you have shown us that our alarm is more emotional than substantial. The country has been fed upon the proud anticipations of the accomplishment of this Canal. It has become a political question. It has colored the utterances of our public men. It has been the dream of the President, as the crowning work of a pre-eminent list of services to the nation. His energy has pushed it to the verge of completion, and in its prosecution the Nation and the President have become united in positive endorsement. It may all be right yet. Let us hope and pray so.” Flushed with real feeling, Mr. Garrett shook the hand of Leacraft, and in a sort of review, the rest imitated his example, and left the room, leaving Ned and Leacraft behind. It was then that Leacraft turned to Ned Garrett and said: “I thought I saw an engagement ring on the hand of your sister.” The statement was a question. Ned Garrett looked at his friend with singular intensity of interest and sympathy. He realized the anguish of the man who, loving his sister beyond all earthly price, forgot a country’s peril in the eagerness of his hope that perhaps his heart-breaking fears were unjustified. The two men were standing. Ned Garrett took Leacraft’s hand and placed his other hand upon his shoulder, and his earnest face uttered its inviolable commiseration: “Yes, Burney; Sally is engaged to Mr. Barry.” They turned and left the room. That night it was not the convulsions of nature breaking down the barriers of two words, and bringing into action new forces and new vicissitudes among the peoples of the earth, that marred the sleep of the restless Englishman. No; it was the face of Sally Garrett smiling into the bending face of Brig Barry, and touching his lips. CHAPTER IV. GETTYSBURG, MAY 30TH, 1909. The Garrett party reached Gettysburg at mid-day, May 30th, 1909, having passed through, in the train from Baltimore, the delightfully rural scenes of western Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. Recent rains had swelled the brooks and expanded the ponds. The wide undulations of hills and vales were radiant in verdure, responding with the alacrity of new vegetation to the encouragement of the skies, that now in a broad arch of fleckless blue, seemed to bend over them in pride and emulation. A thousand pictures of loveliness, of homely domestic bliss, of agricultural plenty, of bucolic thrift and retirement, met their eyes, and Leacraft himself found a solace to his grieved soul in resting his eyes upon spots of soft and uninjured beauty, wherein nature and the gentle craft of pastoral life combined their artless charms to make the landscape serene and inviting to the eye.